A Los Angeles County doctor was sentenced to 15 years in prison for fraudulently billing Medicare for more than $45 million in Botox injection services that were "medically unnecessary and never provided," according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Glendale-based doctor Violetta Mailyan, 45, owned and operated Healthy Way Medical Center, a clinic that claimed to provide beauty and cosmetic services, according to the DOJ's news release.
"Although Medicare reimburses medical providers for Botox injections when necessary to treat documented cases of chronic migraines, Mailyan billed and received payments for thousands of injections that were never provided," the release said.
Instead, prosecutors say Mailyan only provided the Botox injections for cosmetic purposes, or for patients whose primary care physicians hadn't referred them for chronic migraine treatment.
According to the DOJ's release, Mailyan billed for thousands of injections for more than $19 million, including on days when her clinic was closed.
"Mailyan also billed for providing Botox injections when she was actually on vacation in Mexico, Hawaii, Las Vegas, Pennsylvania, and New York at various times throughout her fraud scheme," prosecutors said. "For example, Mailyan billed over $200,000 for purportedly providing Botox services to patients in California when she was actually relaxing on the beach in Cabo."
"The evidence also showed that when Mailyan realized federal investigators were closing in, she tried to hide her tracks by falsifying medical records and forging Medicare beneficiary signatures, including for a man who was in federal prison during the time Mailyan claimed to have provided treatment," prosecutors said.
According to court documents, she then submitted those records to federal investigators to throw them off her trail and make it appear she had seen patients.
Prosecutors said that Mailyan used the stolen money to purchase luxury goods, including a $12,000 17th-century crossbow, a $3,000 painting, five pieces of real estate in California nad two Tesla vehicles, including a Cybertruck.
She was convicted of nine counts of wire fraud and three counts of obstruction of a criminal investigation of a health care offense, the release said. She was ordered to forfeit more than $16 million worth of property, including real estate, personal items, securities and bank funds. Mailyan was also ordered to pay $32,904,049.41 in restitution to Medicare.
Upon sentencing Mailyan, the court said that her fraud was "truly breathtaking in scope and shocking in its duration" and that her actions were "almost unbelievable in their brazenness."
