Ex-LA hospital owner convicted of Medicare fraud gets prison for recruiting Skid Row patients

Ex-LA hospital owner sentenced for Medicare fraud

LOS ANGELES — A former Los Angeles hospital owner was sentenced Monday to more than three years in federal prison for paying kickbacks to recruit patients from among the homeless on Skid Row, authorities said.

Robert Bourseau, 75, was sentenced to 37 months in prison and ordered to pay $4.1 million in restitution for defrauding Medicare and Medi-Cal, as Medicaid is known in California. He pleaded guilty in June to paying illegal kickbacks to defraud the government health care systems.

U.S. District Judge George H. King said that such schemes “degrade the health care system, all because of greed and money.”

“Society must know that those who abuse the health care system must answer for that conduct in court,” the judge said.

Bourseau, who has homes in downtown Los Angeles and in Rancho Mirage, co-owned the now-defunct City of Angels Medical Center.

Federal prosecutors contended that Bourseau and the hospital’s co-owner, Dr. Rudra Sabaratnum, paid a recruiter $500,000 between 2004 and 2007 to recruit Skid Row denizens to undergo unnecessary hospital stays, then billed the government for their care.

The patients then received a small payment, typically less than $100, according to a statement from the U.S. attorney’s office.

Sabaratnum, 65, of Los Angeles, pleaded guilty in 2008 to paying kickbacks and is scheduled to be sentenced on April 5. Both men agreed last month to pay $10 million to settle a state and federal fraud lawsuit.

Two others who pleaded guilty await sentencing: Dante Nicholson, the hospital’s former senior vice president, and the recruiter, Estill Mitts.

Mitts, who ran a Skid Row assessment center, said he earned about $20,000 a month in kickbacks and was delivering between 30 and 50 patients a month. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit health care fraud, money laundering and tax evasion.

Meanwhile, the U.S. attorney’s office said that the former chief financial officer of Tustin Hospital and Medical Center has agreed to plead guilty to paying illegal kickbacks in a similar Skid Row recruitment scheme.

Vincent Rubio, 49, of Los Angeles, was scheduled to make his first court appearance Monday, the office said.