8 employees at the Port of Very long Seaside, a business operator and a single of her workforce were being charged this week in federal courtroom in link with a plan to fraudulently bill the dockworkers union’s health approach for sexual services and falsified physical therapy claims, prosecutors claimed.
All of the defendants other than for just one dockworker submitted plea agreements. The alleged ringleader, 46-year-aged Sara Victoria of San Pedro, admitted in her plea arrangement to owning a few businesses between 2017 and 2021 that furnished sexual solutions as effectively as chiropractic and acupuncture treatment options.
Figuring out that the wellbeing insurance plan presented by the Intercontinental Longshore and Warehouse Union – Pacific Maritime Assn. typically included all chiropractic services with out a deductible, copay or out-of-pocket expenditures, prosecutors said, Victoria provided the dockworkers funds kickbacks or sexual providers for them and their buddies in trade for authorization to “submit false promises for services not truly rendered.”
Victoria recruited girls from strip golf equipment and via referrals to supply sexual companies to dockworkers in her companies, federal prosecutors reported.
Some of the phony claims have been submitted employing the names of dockworkers’ family members associates, such as spouses and young children.
Victoria submitted a lot more than $2.1 million in fake promises, and extra than $550,000 was compensated out, in accordance to the U.S. attorney’s business for the Central District of California.
The plea agreements for seven of the dockworkers and Victoria and one particular of her employees were being submitted Wednesday, with the defendants predicted to look in court docket in the coming months.
Victoria, who agreed to plead guilty to one particular depend each individual of conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud and aggravated identity theft, faces up to 12 yrs in federal jail right after she enters her plea. Her staff agreed to plead responsible to one particular rely of conspiracy.
4 of the dockworkers will plead guilty to one rely of conspiracy to commit health care fraud, and three will plead responsible to 1 rely of theft in connection with health care.
Long Seaside dockworker Cameron Rahm, who was also charged in relationship with the scheme and accused of lying to federal investigators, pleaded not guilty.
Rahm, 39, of Pico Rivera, is accused of authorizing Victoria to post wrong promises for sexual services. He denied undertaking so to FBI brokers investigating the scenario, prosecutors reported.
Rahm was charged in a federal grand jury indictment with 1 count of conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud, two counts of health care fraud and 1 count of generating untrue statements to federal investigators.
If convicted, he faces up to 10 yrs in prison for the healthcare fraud expenses and five decades in jail for producing untrue statements.
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