Fadel Alshalabi, Medicare Fraud, Tennessee 2021

Tennessee Man Charged with Medicare Fraud Scheme

NASHVILLE – Fadel Alshalabi, 54, of Waxhaw, North Carolina, has been charged with orchestrating a fraudulent Medicare and Medicaid billing scheme related to genetic testing.

According to a federal grand jury indictment, Alshalabi, the owner and Chief Executive Officer of Crestar Labs, LLC, entered into sham contracts and paid kickbacks in exchange for genetic testing and urine analysis samples. The tests were then purportedly approved by telemedicine doctors who did not engage in the treatment of the patients, and often did not even speak with the patients for whom they ordered tests.

The indictment alleges that the co-conspirators targeted and recruited elderly patients who were federal health care program beneficiaries in order to obtain their genetic material for conducting genetic tests. Marketers, who were not health care professionals, obtained swabs from the mouths of the patients at nursing homes, senior health fairs, and elsewhere.

The tests were then billed to Medicare and Medicaid, with Alshalabi and his co-conspirators collecting over $150 million in payments between 2016 and July 2021.

If convicted, Alshalabi faces up to 10 years on the money laundering charges, and all defendants face up to 10 years in prison on the health care fraud and Anti-Kickback Statute charges, and up to 5 years on the charge of conspiracy to violate the Anti-Kickback Statute.

The case is being investigated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General, and the FBI, with the assistance of state partners including the Georgia Attorney General’s Office, Georgia Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Medicaid Fraud Control Unit.

The defendants charged in the second superseding indictment are:

• Fadel Alshalabi, 54, of Waxhaw, North Carolina, owner and CEO of Crestar Labs, LLC
• Edward D. Klapp, 63, of Jupiter, Florida, former Vice President of Sales for Crestar
• Melissa L. Chastain, 57, of Belton, South Carolina, owner and CEO of Genetix LLC
• Roger Allison, 64, of Greenville, South Carolina, President of Genetix
• Dakota White, 28, of Easley, South Carolina, former Director of Client Services and Vice President of Operations for Crestar
• Robert Alan Richardson, 53, of Silver Spring, Maryland, principal of Freedom Medical Labs, LLC
• Edward Burch, 53, of Rockville, Maryland, principal of Freedom Medical Labs, LLC
• Samuel Harris, 27, of Salt Lake City, Utah, owner of Secure Health

Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-mdtn/pr/grand-jury-charges-eight-people-spring-hill-based-crestar-labs-llc-medicare-medicaid