Physicians and other health care providers should always be careful when answering advertisements for clinics, especially when run by non-physicians. One recent case shows what happens when physicians' identities were stolen for prescribing purposes. In addition, other physicians were hired and are facing their own issues.
On April 16, 2019, two Los Angeles area brothers Minas Matosyan (age 38) and Hayk Matosyan (age 32) pleaded guilty to federal
criminal charges, admitting that they conspired to distribute controlled substances, such as hydrocodone and oxycodone via sham medical clinics that hired doctors who wrote fraudulent prescriptions to black market customers.
According to the plea agreement, in May 2016, Minas Matosyan spoke with a doctor and offered him a “very lucrative position” where the doctor would “sit home making $20,000 a month doing nothing,” according to the plea agreement. After the doctor declined the offer, Minas stole the doctor’s identity, sending a co-conspirator a text message containing the doctor’s full name, medical license number and national provider identifier number that the co-conspirator used to order prescription pads in the doctor’s name.
Over the next two months, Mr. Matosyan and his co-conspirators allegedly sold fraudulent prescriptions purportedly issued by the victim doctor for at least 9,450 pills of oxycodone and 990 pills of hydrocodone. According to his plea agreement, Minas Matosyan admitted to controlling the "sham" clinics and then hiring "corrupt" doctors who allegedly allowed their names to be used on fraudulent prescriptions in exchange for kickbacks.
Minas Matosyan also admitted to stealing the identities of other doctors and then issuing prescriptions in those doctors’ names, either by personally acquiring prescription pads in the doctors’ names or by arranging for other co-conspirators to do so. Now you can see why identity theft is an issues in this case.
Minas Matosyan also admitted to staffing receptionists at the clinics who would falsely verify the phony prescriptions when pharmacists called to verify them. This is where the diversion then apparently began. Minas Matosyan then sold narcotic prescriptions to black market customers – either directly or through couriers – and also sold bulk quantities of hydrocodone and oxycodone he had acquired from phony prescriptions filled at pharmacies by other customers.
Hayk Matosyan admitted in his plea agreement that he aided the conspiracy by serving as a courier of oxycodone or related proceeds from the sale of oxycodone.
The Matosyan brothers were arrested in August 2017 pursuant to a grand jury indictment that charged a total of 12 defendants in a scheme to divert at least 2 million prescription pills for sale on the black market. A September 10 trial date has been scheduled for most of the remaining defendants.
The brothers each pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to
distribute a controlled substance before United States District Judge Philip S.
Gutierrez. A July 15 sentencing hearing for the brothers is currently set.
