Crime Watch

East Rockaway man 1 of 4 arrested and charged in alleged Medicare and Medicaid scam

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A medical clinic business manager from East Rockaway was among four Long Island residents charged with fraud for allegedly taking part in kickback schemes that bilked Medicare and Medicaid out of up to $163 million.

Gary Peresiper, 52, of East Rockaway, was charged in cases filed in the Eastern District of New York along with physicians Abraham Demoz, 48, of Oceanside; Yong Jun Kim, 48, of Roslyn; and Hal Abrahamson, 55, of Melville.

The charges are part of a national investigation into healthcare fraud that has led to charges against 601 people who generated fraudulent claims of up to $2 billion. The Long Island defendants are accused of fraudulently billing Medicaid and Medicare for services that were never performed.

“Healthcare fraud is not a victimless crime,” said James Robnett, a criminal investigation special agent-in-charge for the Internal Revenue Service, in a release. “We all pay when others swindle the United States government.With both law enforcement and financial investigation expertise, our agents are uniquely qualified to assist our law enforcement partners in these cases, by following the money when investigating these allegations.”

Peresiper is charged with conspiracy to pay health care kickbacks for allegedly submitting Medicare claims “for purported diagnostic testing and other services for beneficiaries who had been directed to the clinics in return for kickbacks,” prosecutors said. The billings were from November 2010 to June 2013 and amounted to $10.2 million. Peresiper was arrested on June 4 and arraigned in Brooklyn federal court.

The charges against the four were the result of a multiagency investigation that included the Justice Department, the IRS, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the federal Department of Health and Human Services and the New York State Office of the Medicaid Inspector General.