A laboratory sales representative, who had pleaded guilty to using a sham charity to direct unnecessary genetic testing to laboratories in exchange for kickbacks, has lost his bid in the Third Circuit to reduce his 50-month sentence.  On Wednesday, the Third Circuit issued an opinion rejecting the argument by Seth Rehfuss that the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey should not have applied the vulnerable victim enhancement and two others under the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines in determining his sentence.   Rehfuss had an arrangement with two laboratories in Virginia ..read more

Unfortunately fraud, waste, abuse, and of course, criminal activity do not take a vacation during a pandemic.  In fact, targets and methods of fraudsters can and will evolve much like a virus.  When the normal checks and balances that have been put in place by compliance, general counsel, security, internal audit, and other mechanisms that keep Corporate America safe are shuttered at home, criminal activity will increase.  Obviously, with travel bans and advisories – domestically and abroad – traditional investigations using standard time-honored interviewing techniques cannot proceed.  Howeve ..read more

Two and a half years ago, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court created a task force to perform a comprehensive review of investigating grand juries and last Friday, that report was finally released. Here’s what you need to know. The Task Force examined six major topics: 1) the Role of the Supreme Court; 2) the Role of the Supervising Judge; 3) the Role of the Commonwealth Attorney; 4) Grand Jury Secrecy; 5) Grand Jury Reports; and 6) Regional Investigating Grand Juries.  Following is a summary of recommendations related to each topic: I. Role of the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has a significant ..read more

Individual liability continues to be at the forefront of criminal investigations and the litigation that often follows. Throughout the past five years, the U.S. Department of Justice’s edicts on individual culpability have varied in tone and rigidity, but the underlying focus on individuals has remained constant. On Sept. 9, 2015, former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates authored a memorandum on corporate prosecution, now referred to as the “Yates memo.[1] The Yates memo, which memorialized the DOJ’s long-standing policy that individual accountability is one of the most effective ways to det ..read more

The Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division is a unique organization that wields its proverbial sword in both civil and criminal realms. Although less than a decade ago the Antitrust Division closed several of its field offices and consolidated personnel, recent investigations and prosecutions demonstrate that the Division is very much alive and well. The Division has recently been investigating a group of individuals involved in an online bid rigging scheme of the Government Services Administration’s (GSA) online public auction. So far 2 people have pled guilty and agreed to cooperate with ..read more

A coordinated law enforcement effort among myriad federal, state and local law enforcement agencies in Pennsylvania and New Jersey resulted in the arrests of 48 defendants. Included in those arrested were doctors and medical professionals who, allegedly, submitted over $160 million in fraudulent insurance claims, caused losses of over $800 million and distributed over 3.25 million opioid pills. This law enforcement sweep reached across seven federal districts, including the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. In the Eastern District of Pennsylvania alone, 17 health care professionals were arrest ..read more

Yesterday, the Third Circuit affirmed a doctor’s conviction for accepting bribes in exchange for referrals to New Jersey based lab Biodiagnostic Laboratory Services (BLS).  U.S. v. Thomas V. Savino, No. 18-2223 (3d Cir. 2019).  Doctor Thomas Savino allowed BLS to set up a blood drawing station in his solo medical practice in Staten Island, New York.  BLS paid Savino approximately $25,000 over the course of the arrangement, which lasted from August 2012 to April 2013.   The government, with the assistance of a BLS recruiter-turned-cooperating witness, alleged that those payments were bribes for ..read more

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”), codified in 15 U.S.C. §§ 78dd-1, et. seq., prohibits certain classes of persons and entities from paying foreign government officials to assist in obtaining or retaining business. Specifically, persons and entities may not corruptly use any means of instrumentality of interstate commerce in furtherance of any offer or payment of money or thing of value to any person, while knowing that the money offered is meant to influence a foreign official in his or her official capacity. Recently, the FCPA made headlines through its involvement in the prosecutio ..read more

Corporations engaged in civil litigation or government investigations often need to address public relations resulting from their legal involvement, commonly referred to as “crisis communications.” Outside and in-house legal counsel and the corporate officers involved have always had to exercise considerable care to avoid potential waiver of attorney-client and attorney work product privileges. In a recent Opinion, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court provides important insights on these points. See Bousamra, M.D. v. Excela Health, et al., J-80-2018, 5 WAP 2018 Supreme Court of Pennsylvania Western ..read more

A colleague and I had a conversation recently about Uber drivers and other ride-sharing platforms who are using ‘dash-cams’ to film the road ahead or passengers. These types of cameras protect drivers from claims of inappropriate conduct or dangerous driving and they’re starting to pop up in many vehicles. My colleague had “taken an Uber” and was on the phone with her husband when she entered the vehicle and did not realize there was a camera device - which was also capable of audio recording - in the car.  These details cannot be taken lightly by drivers (or passengers) because in the Keyston ..read more