NEWARK, N.J. – A Pennsylvania doctor today admitted participating in two conspiracies to receive bribes and kickbacks in exchange for ordering genetic tests, Acting U.S. Attorney Rachael A. Honig announced.
Lee Besen, 65, of Waverly, Pennsylvania, pleaded guilty by videoconference before U.S. District Judge Anne E. Thompson to an information charging him with two counts of conspiring to violate the Anti-Kickback Statute.
Besen is the fourth defendant to plead guilty in bribery and kickback schemes involving doctors and medical employees in the Scranton, Pennsylvania, area.
According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court, Besen was a primary care physician with an office in the Scranton area. In 2018, he began accepting monthly cash kickbacks and bribes in exchange for collecting DNA samples from Medicare patients and sending them for genetic tests to clinical laboratories in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
The cash kickbacks ranged from $500 to over $8,000. Besen typically accepted the cash inside his office, at times behind locked doors. When Besen did not receive his kickback and bribe payments, the volume of genetic tests he ordered dipped. When he accepted those payments, that volume typically increased because, as Besen said in a recorded conversation, ‘Greenbacks speak.’
Besen frequently sought ways to make more money. At one point, he proposed adding to the scheme by collecting ‘CGx’ cancer screening tests from Medicare patients, sending the tests to a new lab, and then splitting lucrative sales commissions that the lab paid out – ranging up to $2,500 per test.
Although Besen had not previously ordered CGx tests for any of his patients, once he realized there was money to be made, he said in a recording that his office was ‘totally open now for CGx.’
As a result of the scheme, Medicare paid $350,374 for genetic tests generated from Besen’s medical practice. Separately, Besen and Terri Haines, of Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, entered into a different kickback and bribery scheme involving ‘health fairs.’
Haines was not a health care provider, but made a living soliciting and collecting CGx genetic screening tests from Medicare patients at health fairs, and then sending those tests to a lab in exchange for commissions. She was not authorized to order those CGx tests without a doctor’s sign-off.
Haines paid Besen a kickback and bribe to use his name and medical credentials to order CGx tests for the Medicare patients she met at fairs, even though Besen never actually attended any of the health fairs and never met the patients for whom the genetic tests were ordered.
Medicare paid $713,882 for CGx genetic tests that resulted from this scheme.
Each conspiracy charge is punishable by a maximum of five years in prison and a fine of $250,000, or twice the gross gain or loss derived from the offense, whichever is greater. Sentencing is scheduled for July 6, 2021.
Related Federal Cases
- Robert Lee, Lying to Federal Investigators, South Florida, 2023 · Pennsylvania
- Amar D. Patel, Postal Theft, New Jersey 2024 · Pennsylvania
- Amber Harris, Genetic Test Kickback Scheme, PA 2023 · Washington
- Christopher Glynn, Wire Fraud and Money Laundering, New Jersey 2024 · Washington
- Parrish Brookins, Mail Theft, New Jersey 2023 · Pennsylvania
Key Facts
- State: New Jersey
- Category: White Collar Crime
- Source: DOJ Press Release â†â€â€
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