Ex-Assemblyman Among Arrests In Scheme To Defraud Medicaid, Prosecutor Says

BROOKLYN, NY — A former Brooklyn assemblyman was among 13 people arrested for a scam that saw three Brooklyn clinics pay patients with narcotics if they took part in phony medical tests, prosecutors said.

Former Coney Island Assemblyman Alec Brook-Krasny was among those charged in connection to a scheme that doled out prescription pills to people who underwent uneccessary tests. Medicare and Medicaid would then be billed for the examinations, New York Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget Brennan said Friday.

The fraud started at Parkville Medical Health in Kensington and LF Medical Services of NY in Clinton Hill, the prosecutor said. It then expanded to include PM Medical in Midwood, she said.

Investigators started to wire-tap the clinics in 2013 after getting suspicious about huge amounts of opioid prescriptions that they were writing.

Between 2012 and 2017, Parkville and LF Medical clinics made over $16 million from reimbursed medical procedures for phony exams. They prescribed more than 3.7 million oxycodone pills to people for taking part, according to the prosecutor.

PM Medical practitioners allegedly prescribed 2.6 million pills and made more than $8 million.

Brook-Krasny is accused of using a lab he operated in Sheepshead Bay to alter test results.

The investigations resulted in the arrest of 13 people who are charged with criminal sale of a prescription for a controlled substance, health care fraud, falsifying business records and money laundering.

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