8 arrests made in federal crackdown on alleged health care fraud in Southern California

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Federal officials on Thursday arrested eight people they say were involved in various health care fraud schemes totaling $50 million in and around Los Angeles.

Five of the cases involved hospice-care centers in cities of Glendale, Artesia, Tarzana and Simi Valley in the Los Angeles area that allegedly billed Medicare for patients that were not terminally ill and did not qualify for hospice services, the U.S. Attorney's Office said. One person was arrested in Idaho and another in LA for allegedly defrauding a West Coast labor union’s health care plans. An additional person arrested in LA was accused of forging immigration medical documents.

The Trump administration has made California, and the Los Angeles area in particular, a focus of its national anti-fraud efforts, alleging the Democratic-led state is failing to crack down on improper spending.

First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli, a Trump appointee, called the California the “kingdom of fraud,” during a news conference announcing the charges.

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office said the state has already aggressively cracked down on hospice fraud, noting that he signed a law in 2021 to stop providing new hospice licenses over fraud concerns. The office also said the state has revoked more than 280 hospice licenses in two years and 300 providers are under investigation.

“Glad the federal government is finally stepping up to do their part,” Newsom wrote in a post on X.

The administration has highlighted fraud around the country across federal benefits programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. President Donald Trump signed an executive order in March to create an anti-fraud task force led by Vice President JD Vance, which met for the first time last week. Most of the efforts have focused on states run by Democrats, though Republican-led Florida was among those asked to share more information on how they identify, prevent and address Medicaid fraud.

“We are enforcing a zero-tolerance policy for criminals who defraud American taxpayers,” Essayli said in a statement announcing the California charges.

Dr. Mehmet Oz said during a news conference that federal officials “took out” 221 hospices in the last 10 weeks. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which Oz runs, did not immediately respond to an email seeking more information about what that entailed. CMS certifies hospice provides to accept patients on government-subsidized health insurance.

“We're going to review every single hospice in California,” Oz said.

In January, Oz posted a video on social media in front of an Armenian bakery in Los Angeles, alleging that roughly $3.5 billion in hospice and home care fraud has taken place in the city and “quite a bit of it” was run by “the Russian Armenian mafia.” It led to a civil rights complaint by Newsom's office, who said Oz had targeted Armenians with “baseless and racially charged allegations.”

Oz's agency also announced that it is proposing a new, publicly available hospice scoring system using care metrics to better identify facilities that might be illegitimate.

The largest Medicare fraud case announced Thursday involved an Artesia-based hospice center, whose owner submitted more than $9 million in fraudulent hospice claims to Medicare, and was paid more than $8.5 million on the claims, prosecutors said.

The owner paid beneficiaries and marketers for referring purported hospice patients to her company. One couple said they were each promised $300 per month to sign up for hospice care even though they did not need it, and they received unnecessary items such as nutritional shakes, nonprescription vitamins and wheelchairs, prosecutors said.

Another person charged in a new hospice fraud case is currently serving federal prison time in Seattle after being convicted in a previous hospice fraud case in December 2024. Her husband was arrested as a co-defendant Thursday morning.

Authorities also announced charges against a Los Angeles nurse that used a hospice center in Tarzana to submit more than $3.8 million in claims, of which Medicare paid approximately $3.4 million. She has not yet been arrested.

Court dates have not been set and it wasn't immediately clear if any of those arrested had legal representation.