'Dr. X' Sentenced in Fraud Scheme

The owner of a Newark medical clinic was sentenced Tuesday to three years’ probation for his role in a Medicaid fraud scheme, state Attorney General Jeffrey Chiesa said in a statement Wednesday.

Bryan X. Chandler, also known as “Dr. X.,” a 45-year-old East Orange resident,  recruited beneficiaries to come to his clinic, Samaritan Medical on South Orange Avenue in Newark, so that multiple prescriptions could be written in their names and sold to pharmacies in Newark. The five pharmacists who also took part in the scheme would then bill Medicaid for the prescription costs without having filled the prescriptions.

The prescriptions were often for expensive drugs, including HIV/AIDS medications.

Chandler will pay more than $100,000 in restitution - equivalent to Medicaid payments to his clinic since it opened in 2007 -- must forfeit two cars and another $18,000 in cash and is barred from serving as a Medicaid service provider for five years.