California Fraud

Since this is a hot topic around the nation and these investigations are just kicking off out in California, let's track what is uncovered. Just the other day there were 8 arrested in healthcare fraud cases in Southern California.

Office of Inspector General:

In coordination with the Vice President’s Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, eight defendants, including three nurses, a chiropractor, and a psychologist, have been arrested on federal charges that they schemed to defraud the nation’s health care system out of more than $50 million – including by running sham hospice care facilities that bilked Medicare by using people without terminal illnesses as beneficiaries, the Justice Department announced today.

Six of the defendants arrested today are expected to make their initial appearances this afternoon, 04/02/26, in United States District Court in downtown Los Angeles. One defendant is expected to make his initial appearance in U.S. District Court in Idaho.

“We are enforcing a zero-tolerance policy for criminals who defraud American taxpayers,” said First Assistant United States Attorney Bill Essayli. “The defendants arrested this morning who are charged with stealing millions of dollars of health care benefits got caught and now face years in federal prison.”

“The Southern California region is a high-risk environment for hospice-related and many other forms of health care fraud,” said Akil Davis, the Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office. “The United States loses hundreds of billions of dollars annually to healthcare fraud at the expense of all American taxpayers, whose benefits decrease as premiums, co-payments and taxes grow. Our aim is to reverse that trend with ‘Operation Never Say Die’ and others like it.”

“The defendants charged today allegedly turned hospice care into a cash producing operation, resulting in more than $50 million in losses to taxpayers. The magnitude of the losses underscores a deliberate abuse of the authority and trust afforded to health care providers,” said Inspector General T. March Bell of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG). “Today’s takedown reflects HHS-OIG’s commitment to deploy every tool at our disposal, and collaborate with our law enforcement partners, to dismantle hospice operations built on deception. Anyone who seeks to weaponize hospice care to bilk Medicare should expect to be held accountable.”

“Health care fraud undermines federal programs, threatens public trust, diverts resources away from legitimate patient care, and is a calculated attack on programs meant to protect the vulnerable,” said Tyler Hatcher, Special Agent in Charge, IRS-CI Los Angeles Field Office. “The enforcement actions taken today demonstrate IRS-CI’s commitment to uncovering the financial lies behind these schemes and holding accountable those who profit at the expense of taxpayers and patients. Our agents will continue to work alongside our law-enforcement partners to protect the integrity of our healthcare system and ensure that those who abuse it are brought to justice.”

Fraud in California is massive, most likely more than any other state in the nation. This is just a drop in the bucket in regards to what will be uncovered in time to come. Each take down that happens will be in the millions, all of which is taxpayer dollars down the drain. All under Gavin Newsom......what does he know or has turned a blind eye at we will soon find out....  

Let's meet our contestants:

Lolita Beronilla Minerd, 65, a.k.a. “Lolita Beronilla Rice,” of Anaheim, a licensed vocational nurse, was arrested today on a federal criminal complaint charging her with health care fraud.

According to court documents, Minerd owned and operated the Artesia-based Topanga Hospice Care Inc. From July 2020 to April 2025, Minerd used this company to submit more than $9,174,117 in fraudulent hospice claims to Medicare, which paid more than $8,510,448 on these claims.

Through Topanga, Minerd billed Medicare for hospice services for beneficiaries who were not terminally ill. Numerous beneficiaries had common addresses and lived far from the facility, which is consistent with being recruited by marketers. The investigation further revealed that Minerd paid kickbacks to beneficiaries and marketers for the referral of purported hospice patients to her company.

One beneficiary couple was approached at a market about signing up and then were visited at home by Minerd and three other Topanga employees, who promised them if they signed up everything would be free, and they each would receive $300 per month. The money was delivered in an envelope in cash: $600 per month for six months. Neither beneficiary stated they had a terminal illness, which their physician confirmed. The couple also reported receiving unneeded items such as nutritional shakes, non-prescription vitamins, and wheelchairs.

Topanga had a non-death discharge rate of approximately 85%, nearly five times the national average of 17.2% from 2021.

The FBI is investigating this matter along with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG).

Assistant United States Attorney Alexandra M. Michael of the Major Frauds Section is prosecuting this case.

Gladwin Gill, a 66-year-old purported psychologist, and his wife, Amelou Gill, a 70-year-old registered nurse, both of Covina, were arrested today on a federal criminal complaint charging them with health care fraud.

According to an affidavit filed with the complaint, the Gills owned and operated the Glendale-based 626 Hospice Inc., which did business as St. Francis Palliative Care.

The Gills allegedly schemed to defraud Medicare by paying illegal kickbacks for the referral of patients who were not dying. The Gills also submitted more than $5.2 million in fraudulent claims to Medicare for hospice services that either were not medically necessary or were not provided. Medicare paid the Gills more than $4 million on these fraudulent claims.

They then laundered the scheme’s proceeds and spent their ill-gotten gains on personal expenses such as mortgage payments, car payments, international flights, restaurants, and personal bills.

The Gills are expected to make their initial appearance this afternoon in U.S. District Court in downtown Los Angeles.

HHS-OIG, the FBI, IRS Criminal Investigation, and the Food and Drug Administration are investigating this matter with assistance from United States Trustee, Region 16, Los Angeles Field Office.

Assistant United States Attorney David Y. Pi of the Major Frauds Section is prosecuting this case.

Nita Almuete Paddit Palma, 76, a thrice-convicted health care fraudster now incarcerated at a federal prison in Seattle, and her husband, Adolfo Cezar Catbagan, 68, of Glendale, are charged in an 11-count indictment with operating at least three fraudulent hospice care facilities – including while Palma was free on bond awaiting a hospice fraud trial. Law enforcement arrested Catbagan this morning.

Palma, who is a lawful permanent resident from the Philippines, and Catbagan are charged in an indictment with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and health care fraud and 10 counts of health care fraud.

According to the indictment, from June 2022 to April 2024, Palma and Catbagan opened three Glendale-based hospice care facilities despite Palma being legally barred from doing so: One Up Hospice Care Inc., Rosewood Hospice and Palliative Care Inc., and Advance Hospice and Palliative Care Inc.

Catbagan was named as the nominal owner and CEO of the three hospices when Palma in fact owned and exercised operating control of them – despite her exclusion – so Medicare would not deny the companies’ claims. The defendants submitted false claims to Medicare for beneficiaries who were not terminally ill and the physicians supposedly providing hospice services did not treat the patients.

Palma and Catbagan submitted at least $4.8 million in fraudulent claims through these companies, resulting in Medicare payments of at least $4.2 million.

HHS-OIG and the FBI are investigating this matter.

Assistant United States Attorneys Andrew M. Roach and Roger A. Hsieh of the Major Frauds Section are prosecuting this case. Assistant United States Attorney Alexander Su of the Asset Forfeiture and Recovery Section is handling asset forfeiture matters for this case.

Evelyn Tindimobuna, 51, a licensed vocational nurse from Chatsworth, is charged in a federal criminal complaint with health care fraud. According to an affidavit filed with the complaint, from January 2022 to September 2025, Tindimobuna used the Tarzana-based Comfort Choice Hospice Inc. to submit to Medicare hundreds of fraudulent claims for purported hospice services to dozens of beneficiaries. For those claims, Comfort Choice sought more than $3.8 million, of which Medicare paid approximately $3.4 million.

For example, in November 2022, Comfort Choice submitted a claim to Medicare in the amount of $7,021, for reimbursement of hospice services for a beneficiary. Law enforcement later interviewed this beneficiary and other Comfort Choice patients who said they were not terminally ill, a requirement to qualify for hospice care.

Tindimobuna allegedly also paid kickbacks to marketers for their referral of hospice patients to Comfort Choice in violation of the Anti-Kickback Statute.

HHS-OIG is investigating this matter.

Special Assistant United States Attorney Yervant P. Hagopian of the Major Frauds Section is prosecuting this case.

Ivan Verne Lauritzen, 50, of Simi Valley, was arrested Tuesday on a federal criminal complaint charging him with health care fraud. According to court documents, Lauritzen was the CEO and CFO of the Simi Valley-based Valley Pacific Hospice Inc., whose Medicare enrollment was revoked in August 2024.

In 2022, the live discharge rate of Valley Pacific patients was more than 75%, vastly higher than the national average that year of approximately 17%. Based on an audit examining 18 Valley Pacific Medicare claims from August 2023 to March 2024, CMS determined the company had a pattern and practice of submitting claims that failed to meet Medicare’s hospice standards and requirements. To facilitate this fraud, Lauritzen forged the signature of at least one physician on the Medicare enrollment forms.

During the alleged scheme, Valley Pacific billed Medicare more than $580,000 and was paid more than $526,000.

Lauritzen made his initial appearance Tuesday and was ordered released on $10,000 bond.

HHS-OIG is investigating this matter.

Assistant United States Attorney Neil P. Thakor of the Major Crimes Section is prosecuting this case.

Four defendants with South Bay ties – one of them a licensed chiropractor – have been charged in a two-count information with conspiracy to commit health care fraud and wire fraud in connection with a $19 million scheme to defraud a labor union’s health plan via false claims for chiropractic services and physical therapy that weren’t needed or never provided.

The defendants charged are:

Tolu Aulava-Moala, 51, of Carson, who was the director of the facilities;
John Nicola, 77, of El Segundo, a licensed chiropractor;
Crysta Richter, 40, of Torrance, who owned a medical billing company; and
John Keohuloa, 49, of Long Beach.

These defendants will be summonsed into Los Angeles federal court and are expected to make their initial appearances in the coming weeks.

According to court documents, from January 2010 to September 2023, they fraudulently submitted at least $19,005,463 in claims to International Longshore and Warehouse Union Pacific Maritime Association and other private health insurers on behalf of several chiropractic and physical therapy service companies: Ohana Wellness Center, Ohana Management Corp., and R3New Wellness – all based in Carson – and the Huntington Beach-based One Life Acupuncture APC.

Aulava-Moala and Keohuloa induced beneficiaries to visit clinics to receive medically unnecessary services, such as massages or endoscopies, in exchange for kickback payments. Nicola knowingly created fake client notes for beneficiaries, and Aulava-Moala, Nicola, and Richter submitted false and fraudulent claims to health insurers for reimbursement for medical services.

In August 2022, the former owner of the Ohana companies testified under oath at a civil trial that the companies falsified patient chart notes and billed claims under chiropractors’ names and insurance numbers without their knowledge. A state court later that month found the Ohana companies liable for the fraud scheme.

In addition, from March 2016 to June 2023, Aulava-Moala and Keohuloa conspired to submit approximately $700,000 in fraudulent receipts for a charity donation program operated by a Los Angeles-based oil refinery for which the company paid at least $500,000.

The FBI, the U.S. Department of Labor Office of Inspector General (DOL-OIG), and the U.S. Department of Labor – Employee Benefits Security Administration are investigating this matter with assistance from Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the United States Secret Service.

Assistant United States Attorney Jason C. Pang of the Transnational Organized Crime Section is prosecuting this case.

Gregory Cartmell, 62, of Coeur D’Alene, Idaho, a licensed chiropractor, was arrested today on a four-count indictment charging him with two counts of health care fraud and two counts of aggravated identity theft. He is expected to make his initial appearance today in U.S. District Court for the District of Idaho. He will be arraigned in Los Angeles in the coming weeks.

According to the indictment, from December 2018 to November 2022, Cartmell submitted approximately $9.14 million in fraudulent claims to the ILWU-PMA health plan for chiropractic services – including for services not rendered – and received approximately $6.43 million in payment from the union’s health plan, which had terminated him from the plan in December 2020.

To circumvent his termination, Cartmell arranged with a co-conspirator – Vincent Surace, 87, of McKinney, Texas – to bill ILWU-PMA’s health plan under the co-conspirator’s name and identification number. In exchange for allowing his name and ID number to be used in the scheme, Cartmell paid Surace a portion of the proceeds the union’s plan paid for the fraudulent claims.

Surace is charged via information with one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud. He will be summonsed to Los Angeles federal court in the coming weeks.

The FBI, the U.S. Department of Labor Office of Inspector General (DOL-OIG), and the U.S. Department of Labor Employee Benefits Security Administration (DOL-EBSA) are investigating this matter.

Assistant United States Attorneys Jason C. Pang of the Transnational Organized Crime Section and William M. Larsen of the Criminal Appeals Section are prosecuting this case with assistance from Assistant United States Attorney Christopher C. Kendall of the Transnational Organized Crime Section.

Sonia Griffen, 51, of Lakewood, was arrested today on a five-count indictment charging her with health care fraud. From April 2019 to May 2024, Griffen allegedly submitted nearly $5 million in fraudulent claims to ILWU-PMA’s health care plan through her wellness company, Bee Well Holistic Wellness Center, for purported chiropractic services given to union members, even though the plan had previously terminated Bee Well and barred it from submitting claims.

According to the indictment, to circumvent Bee Well’s termination from the ILWU-PMA plan and obtain payments, Griffen concealed Bee Well’s identity and involvement by arranging with two chiropractors to bill the plan under their names and at fictitious addresses. She also submitted false claims billing the plan for chiropractic services that were never rendered.

In total, Griffen submitted approximately $4.9 million in fraudulent claims to the ILWU-PMA plan, resulting in payments of approximately $2.5 million.

The FBI, the United States Department of Labor Office of Inspector General (DOL-OIG), and the Department of Labor – Employee Benefits Security Administration (DOL-EBSA) are investigating this matter.

Assistant United States Attorney Jing Yan of the General Crimes Section is prosecuting this case.

Young Joo Ko, 59, of East Hollywood and a lawful permanent resident from South Korea, was arrested today on a federal criminal complaint charging her with fraud and misuse of visas, permits, and other documents.

According to an affidavit filed with the complaint, Ko engaged in a medical fraud scheme exploiting the green card application process by creating fraudulent immigration documents. Civil surgeons designated by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and operating in the Los Angeles area did not examine green card applicants as required by law.

Instead, Ko – for a fee – fraudulently prepared the required forms by presenting herself as a nurse or doctor and indicating false compliance with medical examination requirements necessary for immigration applicants to register permanent residence or adjust their immigration status.

If convicted, Ko would face a statutory maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison.

HSI, IRS Criminal Investigation, and USCIS are investigating this matter.

Assistant United States Attorney Brenda N. Galván of the General Crimes Section is prosecuting this case.

Health care fraud-related charges in these cases carry a statutory maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison. Wire fraud is punishable by up to 20 years in federal prison. Aggravated identity theft carries a mandatory two-year consecutive prison sentence.

Lock 'em away for 30 years or more.  Sad that the maximum penalty is 10 years ! 

Yea, 10 years is nothing. There should definitely be a more severe punishment for something like this. These major crimes for such little time needs to stop.  

Trump administration war on fraud is really a war on the poor.  There are far fewer investigations against the rich due to difficulty.  System prioritizes detecting hypothetical cheaters over helping struggling families.  Actual fraud is committed by small minority with most improper payments being errors.  Worldwide, medical fraud accounts for roughly 3% to 10% of total healthcare spending.

So ~300 billion to 1 trillion dollars a year is small and not a problem. 
Got it. 

Hopefully we can fit a little Florida food in here. 

. The company ultimately pleaded guilty to 14 corporate felonies and agreed to fines and penalties exceeding $1.7 billion

You think this went completely under his nose with a sniff of Impropriety ????   During a 2000 civil deposition regarding the case, Scott pleaded the Fifth Amendment 75 times, refusing to answer questions to avoid self-incrimination. It gets better than Hunter Biden here ! Despite resigning amidst the scandal, Scott received a lucrative exit package, including roughly $10 million in cash and leaving with stock and options valued at over $300 million……This is the example you will see if you look up scumbag in a dictionary! And GOP embraces him with both arms ! 

Yes sir Rick Scott!  Trump and Scott must have incredible locked boy conversations of can you top this?

@joe pockets

 Hopefully we can fit a little Florida food in here.

 Yessir.  You can change the topic in any thread. 

Where is the outrage about Rick Scott? Seems awfully selective. Not surprised considering the selective outrage is from the dotard, MAGA, mouth-breathing side of the aisle. They hate facts, the Constitution, women, etc. Not surprising by one bit.

Why does Trump want to terminate the Constitution? 

Because he hates the constraints of a "democracy." He prefers fascism instead, just like his supporters.

Following a federal investigation, over 221 hospice providers in Los Angeles have been suspended due to suspected fraudulent activity, marking a 215% increase in suspensions from previous reports.

Governor Newsom states:

SACRAMENTO – California has spent years building one of the most comprehensive hospice fraud enforcement efforts in the country. Under Governor Gavin Newsom, the state established a multi-agency Hospice Fraud Task Force, strengthened program integrity oversight, and implemented a moratorium on new hospice licenses that remains in effect.

Today, Governor Newsom highlighted how this work is delivering results: over 280 hospice licenses have been revoked over the past two years, an additional 300 providers are under investigation, and 284 criminals have been arrested, all while new licenses are paused.

Newsom - California takes fraud extremely seriously and has zero tolerance for the abuse of public programs – especially those as sensitive as end-of-life care. That’s why I advanced a moratorium on new hospice licenses four years ago and established the California Hospice Fraud Task Force. Through this coordinated effort, the state has been investigating and prosecuting fraudsters for years.

In what is called the "Golden ID" Identity Theft Scheme:

An investigation in March 2026 revealed a trend where criminals are stealing the identities of foreign nationals who formerly lived in California to create hundreds of fraudulent businesses and secure illicit loans.

Authorities arrested 11 individuals in Los Angeles for a $17 million scheme that used stolen identities of elderly homeowners to take out fraudulent loans against their properties.

@ABooksNightmare

 That is a mess just waiting to be exposed in more areas than just the hospice stuff.

I saw a good meme the other day with an iceberg with the little tip sticking out labeled 'MINN'.  Then below it, much larger sections labeled CAL, NY, ILL, etc.

Very true.  CA will make MIN look like a beginner when it comes to fraud.

Unemployment and Public Benefit Fraud:

Reports suggest California may have lost over $180 billion to fraud and improper payments, including a significant amount in COVID-era unemployment benefits, with investigations ongoing into the extent of the loss.

I can tell you that 21 billion was borrowed from the Federal government for unemployment purposes during COVID to keep California's system for unemployment up and running....of which, the employers are paying back the debt, which reached over 23 billion in the end of 2025...

Because the state did not pay back the loan, federal law triggered automatic payroll tax increases on California employers (a reduction in the FUTA tax credit).

Employers are paying roughly $770 million extra in 2024, rising to over $1 billion annually, with costs exceeding $42 extra per employee in 2025 and rising annually.

The state is on the hook for over $600 million annually in interest on top of the principal.

Reports indicate that while some funds were recovered, a massive portion of the borrowed money was lost to fraudulent payments.

California is now the only state that has not paid its pandemic unemployment debt.

There’s a widespread belief, even among officials who should know better, that California unemployment insurance debt stems from billions of dollars in fraudulent claims that also occurred during the pandemic-caused recession.

It’s questionable whether employers should even be on the hook to repay the loans, because the underlying surge in unemployment was caused entirely by the state-ordered business shutdowns, not a natural recession or employer-ordered layoffs. It’s a cost that should have been born by the state budget, like other impacts of pandemic.

Financing unemployment insurance benefits with federal loans and imposing taxes on employers to service the debt cannot continue indefinitely. It also leaves the system vulnerable to any future economic downturn.

The crisis is another reminder of California’s chronic lack of accountability for wrong-headed governance.

A recent article from California:

California is a cash machine. The state collects some of the country’s highest income, business, and fuel taxes, and now spends more than $300 billion per year. And yet, everywhere you look, California seems to be falling apart.

The roads are crumbling. Mismanaged wildfires have turned neighborhoods into ash. Drug addiction and homelessness have metastasized, turning parts of Los Angeles and San Francisco into no-go zones. And the cost-of-living crisis is pricing middle-class taxpayers out of basic necessities like groceries and gas, even as the state spends billions on welfare programs that never seem to lift anyone out of poverty.

Californians are beginning to ask: Where is all this money going? On paper, it funds hospitals, universities, schools, prisons, infrastructure, and other public services. But beneath the surface, something else is happening that California Governor Gavin Newsom does not want you to see: massive, systematic, brazen fraud.

We conducted interviews with public officials, fraud experts, and political figures, and reviewed hundreds of pages of government reports, state audits, criminal indictments, and other public records on California fraud. From unemployment insurance and Medicaid to failed homeless initiatives and welfare programs, seemingly every state program has been compromised by criminals. The best estimates suggest that, on the governor’s watch, fraudsters, scammers, and organized crime rings have stolen at least $180 billion from taxpayers.

Welcome to Gavin Newsom’s empire of fraud.

One way to inject money was through California’s massive unemployment insurance program (UI). Unemployment insurance is administered by the state’s Employment Development Department (EDD), which can process billions of dollars in payments monthly. Before the state turned on the cash machine, however, experts had warned that the system was ripe for fraud.

Haywood Talcove, one of America’s leading fraud specialists and CEO of?LexisNexis Risk Solutions?for Government, was one such expert. “I was begging [federal officials] not to let the money go out like that, because it was going to be the biggest fraud in the history of our country,” he said. “Obviously, I wasn’t successful.”

For many reasons, California was particularly susceptible to the large-scale fraud schemes?Haywood Talcove?saw on the horizon. Not only did the state have some of the most generous welfare programs in the country; its bureaucrats had also failed to implement some basic fraud controls during Newsom’s tenure.

“They literally suspended all of the rules for the [unemployment insurance] program,” Talcove said. “[That made] it possible for anyone to get that benefit even if they weren’t entitled to it. It was very intentional. They knew what they were doing. But it caught up to them because it just got so out of control.”

The scams began almost immediately, with criminals from around the world reportedly siphoning cash from the program. In one case, a Romanian-led fraud ring orchestrated a $5 million unemployment-insurance scheme. Members allegedly “recruited potential [EDD-benefit] applicants through Facebook” and met them at “parks throughout Southern California to complete the application process,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California. “Applicants paid . . . a partial fee up front for assisting with fraudulent applications and another fee after applicants received EDD payments,” the office said. Many of the fraudsters wired the stolen funds to Romania.

Around September 2020, Fontrell Antonio Baines, a rapper from Memphis known as Nuke Bizzle, released a music video on YouTube entitled “EDD.” In the song, Baines bragged about ripping off California’s UI program. “Go to the bank with a stack of these,” Baines rapped, holding up EDD envelopes. Another rapper can be heard saying: “You gotta sell cocaine, I just file a claim.” All told, Baines obtained more than $700,000 in stolen funds using preloaded EDD debit cards. He pleaded guilty to federal charges.

Nor were these isolated incidents. A member of the SFV Peckerwoods, a California-based neo-Nazi gang, allegedly ran an unemployment scam during the pandemic. So did Michael Thompson, a one-time leader of the Aryan Brotherhood, who was eventually convicted. California’s prison population apparently got in on the action, too: the EDD allegedly paid out hundreds of millions of dollars in fraudulent claims in prisoners’ names, including those of at least 133 inmates on death row.

Remarkably, EDD not only failed regularly to cross-reference its unemployment payouts with a list of state prisoners, but it also had just two bureaucrats assigned manually to inspect reports of suspected fraud. State officials eventually admitted to having paid out approximately $20 billion in fraudulent claims during the pandemic, and to making an estimated $55 billion in improper payments. Talcove claims those figures don’t even tell the full story. “The state lost $32.6 billion dollars of taxpayer money to fraudulent applications,” he said. “In California, at one point, you had more people applying for unemployment insurance benefits than you had people over the age of 18.”

While Newsom has conceded that “bad actors” took advantage of the UI program, he has also defended his government’s record, saying they took swift action as soon as the alleged prison scheme surfaced. The EDD, for its part, has a webpage documenting its anti-fraud efforts. But any suggestion that California has fraud under wraps is contradicted by findings from its non-partisan state auditor.