Court Digest

Virginia
Gynecologist convicted of fraud, unneeded surgeries
CHESAPEAKE, Va. (AP) — A Virginia gynecologist has been found guilty of submitting false insurance claims after performing what authorities described as unnecessary surgeries on women, including hysterectomies and tubal ligations.

The Justice Department said in a statement Monday that a federal jury convicted Javaid Perwaiz on 52 counts related to his defrauding of health insurance programs and falsely telling his patients they needed surgeries.

The Chesapeake doctor had pleaded not guilty. He could face up to 465 years in prison. Sentencing is scheduled next March 31.

“Dr. Perwaiz preyed upon his trusting patients and committed horrible crimes to feed his greed,” said G. Zachary Terwilliger, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Federal prosecutors said last year that many of the procedures Perwaiz performed were unwanted, and that 173 women had come forward since his arrest to report similar experiences, including repetitive surgeries they never asked for. Prosecutors said he performed the surgeries “for his own financial gain.”

Authorities said Perwaiz billed private and governmental insurers millions of dollars for irreversible hysterectomies and other procedures that were not medically necessary. Perwaiz sometimes would falsely tell his patients they needed the surgeries to avoid cancer, they said. He also billed insurers hundreds of thousands of dollars for diagnostic procedures he never performed, they added.

Prosecutors also said Perwaiz falsified the records of pregnant patients so he could induce their labor early, prior to the recommended gestational age that minimizes risk to the mother and baby, to ensure he would be reimbursed for the deliveries. Perwaiz also violated the 30-day waiting period Medicaid requires for elective sterilizations by submitting backdated forms, according to authorities.

Perwaiz’s lawyer, Lawrence Woodward Jr., had said last year that his client had received a flood of unsolicited emails from patients who described Perwaiz’s “fine qualities” and “how he helped them.”

In 1996, Perwaiz was sentenced by a federal judge to five years probation and ordered to pay more than $100,000 in fines and restitution after pleading guilty to two counts of tax fraud. Prosecutors dropped four other counts in exchange for a guilty plea in that case.

Illinois
Cartel member facing US drug conspiracy charges
CHICAGO (AP) — An alleged high-ranking member of the Mexican drug cartel Beltran-Leyva was brought to Chicago to face charges that he helped manufacture and import cocaine into the United States, federal prosecutors revealed Monday.

Geronimo Gamez-Garcia, who has been in custody in Mexico since 2017, was brought to Chicago last week. He appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Sunil Harjani on Thursday, court records show.

Prosecutors allege that from 2015 to 2017, Gamez-Garcia conspired with two others, identified in the indictment as Individual A and Individual B, to manufacture and import large quantities of cocaine into the United States from Mexico.

Gamez-Garcia was arrested in the Mexican state of Morelos in November 2017, and his legal effort to prevent his extradition was denied earlier this year.

Gamez-Garcia is a cousin of former cartel kingpin Arturo Beltran-Leyva and acted as the organization’s logistics chief. Beltran-Leyva was killed in a firefight with Mexican authorities in 2009 before he could be brought to the U.S. to face narcotics trafficking charges.

The indictment of Gamez-Garcia is the latest case brought by the U.S. attorney’s office in Chicago against leaders of Mexico’s drug cartels, which allegedly funnel tons of drugs through the city. Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, leader of the Sinaloa cartel, was also indicted in Chicago but was tried in New York, where he was sentenced to life in prison last year.

New York
Feds: NYPD officer served as lookout for cocaine ring
NEW YORK (AP) — Federal authorities arrested a New York City police officer Monday on charges he served as a lookout for drug traffickers who smuggled hundreds of kilograms of cocaine into the United States.

Officer Amaury Abreu, 34, of Hauppauge, is accused of explaining law enforcement methods to the drug ring and performing warrant checks on its members.

Federal prosecutors said he also distributed cocaine and traveled to the Dominican Republic in January and February to meet with leaders of the trafficking group.

“Today I’m going to find out the thing I couldn’t yesterday because there were too many people at the office,” Abreu said in one message to the traffickers, according to court records.

Abreu was charged with conspiring to import and distribute cocaine and released Monday on $1 million bond. A message was sent to his defense attorney seeking comment.

Abreu has been with the NYPD nine years and is suspended without pay, the Police Department said.

Seth DuCharme, the Brooklyn U.S. attorney, said in a statement that Abreu “disgraced his NYPD badge and betrayed the public trust as well as fellow members of law enforcement who put their lives on the line to interdict drugs that endanger our communities.”

Federal prosecutors also charged two high-ranking members of the New York-based group and the owner of a Long Island produce company accused of receiving cocaine concealed in cardboard tomato boxes.

Authorities said the ring also relied on help from a corrupt U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer to escort drug shipments through customs and baggage claim at John F. Kennedy International Airport.

New York
NYPD to allow religious headgear in mug shots after lawsuit
NEW YORK (AP) — The New York Police Department will stop making people who have been arrested remove their religious headwear for mug shots as part of a settlement in a federal lawsuit.

The initial plaintiffs, two Muslim women and an advocacy group, had filed the federal lawsuit in 2018, with another two Muslim women filing later that year.

They all said they had been forced to remove their hijabs, religious head coverings, by officers as part of being photographed after being arrested.

Under the settlement, the NYPD’s practice will now have those arrested keep wearing their religious head coverings, like hijabs or yarmulkes. There are very limited exceptions, such as if the head covering obscures being able to see the person’s full facial features.

Albert Fox Cahn, an attorney for some of the plaintiffs, pointed out that people wearing religious head coverings can get drivers’ licenses and other photographic ID, so “there’s no reason why the NYPD should require them to remove these same head coverings simply because they’re been accused of a crime.”

In a statement, Patricia Miller, chief of the Special Federal Litigation Division of the city’s law department, said the change was a “good reform.”

“It carefully balances the department’s respect for firmly held religious beliefs with the legitimate law enforcement need to take arrest photos, and should set an example for other police departments in the country,” she said.

According to the settlement, the policy changes will take effect within 60 days of the coronavirus state of emergency being lifted.

Indiana
Woman gets 6 1/2 years for financing terrorism
HAMMOND, Ind. (AP) — An Indiana woman who pleaded guilty to providing financial support to the Islamic State group has been sentenced to 6 1/2 years in prison, the Justice Department said Monday.

Samantha Elhassani, 35, formerly of Elkhart, Indiana, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Philip P. Simon to the prison term, as well as three years of supervised release, after pleading guilty to financing terrorism, officials said.

Elhassani struck a plea agreement in which federal prosecutors agreed to drop more serious conspiracy charges against her and to request a more lenient sentence.

The plea agreement states that in late 2014, her late Moroccan husband and his brother travelled to Syria and join the Islamic State. She made three trips from the U.S. to Hong Kong between November 2014 and April 2015, carrying more than $30,000 in cash and gold intended for IS.

Elhassani’s husband was killed in Syria.

Washington
Former Microsoft worker gets 9 years in $10M fraud scheme
SEATTLE (AP) — A former Microsoft worker was sentenced Monday to nine years in prison for a scheme to steal $10 million in digital currency — money authorities said he used to buy a $160,000 car and a lakefront home.

Volodymyr Kvashuk, a 26-year-old Ukrainian citizen living in Renton, Washngton, was responsible for helping test Microsoft’s online retail sales platform.

Prosecutors said he stole digital currency such as gift cards or codes that could be redeemed for Microsoft products or gaming subscriptions, then resold them on the internet.

A federal jury convicted Kvashuk in February of tax, money laundering and fraud charges. U.S. District Judge James Robart sentenced him Monday and ordered him to pay more than $8.3 million in restitution. Kvashuk could be deported following his prison term.

Much of the money was stolen using email accounts associated with other Microsoft employees.

“Stealing from your employer is bad enough, but stealing and making it appear that your colleagues are to blame widens the damage beyond dollars and cents,” Seattle U.S. Attorney Brian Moran said in a news release.

Kvashuk used the money in part to buy a Tesla vehicle and a $1.7 million lakefront home.

He was fired in June 2018 after the scheme came to light.

North Dakota
Judge rules anti-spoofing law is unconstitutional
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — A federal judge has struck down North Dakota’s law targeting the practice of disguising caller ID numbers.

U.S. District Judge Daniel Traynor ruled Monday the so-called anti-spoofing law is unconstitutional because it intrudes on interstate commerce regulation, a power reserved for Congress.

The state Legislature passed the law last year because of complaints about harassing and scam phone calls. The law makes it a crime to “transmit misleading or inaccurate caller identification information with the intent to defraud or cause harm.”

Traynor wrote that because of cell phones and technology such as call-forwarding, the law has the practical effect of regulating interstate commerce because it’s impossible to determine whether the person receiving the call is physically in North Dakota, the Bismarck Tribune  reported.

SpoofCard LLC, a spoofing service with about 500,000 active users, and CEO Amanda Pietrocola sued last December, arguing that the technique has legitimate uses, such as a doctor or a journalist making a work-related call from a personal phone and wanting to protect the private number.

Attorneys for the state of North Dakota argued that North Dakota’s law is aimed solely at spoofing activity that is done with the intent to defraud.

Violations carry a maximum punishment of a year in jail and a $3,000 fine. A provision in the law also allows spoofing victims to file a civil lawsuit for up to $10,000 in damages per violation.


Oregon
Judge tosses restriction against fed officers at protests
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A federal judge Monday tossed a restriction he placed on federal officers’ actions in response to protests near the federal courthouse in Portland.

“I find that the foundation for the injunction has simply fallen apart,” U.S. District Judge Michael W. Mosman said, ruling from the bench. “It has been erased by a change on the ground - a change that, without trying to get into the heads of the plaintiffs, by all appearances is their victory.”

On Election Day, lawyers for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security urged the judge and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to put an emergency hold on Mosman’s Nov. 2 order, arguing it would put federal officers in danger and wasn’t justified. The Homeland Security department also filed a formal appeal. A three-judge panel of the appellate court declined.

During a status hearing Monday, Mosman said there was no further need for the order, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported. The order had restricted federal officers from engaging in crowd control activities beyond a one-block radius around the downtown courthouse.

The judge pointed out the lack of recent protests immediately outside or near the federal courthouse that have resulted in any response from federal officers.