Brentwood Physician Sentenced for Fraud
A Brentwood physician who operated a clinic in South-Central Los Angeles was sentenced to five years in federal prison and ordered to pay $2.8 million restitution Monday for bilking federal and state health agencies.
Keith O’Neill Perry, 46, who owned and operated KP Medical Center, was convicted last year of 39 felony counts, including mail, wire and bankruptcy fraud and making false statements to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
According evidence at his trial, Perry deliberately misdiagnosed about 300 Medicare and Medi-Cal patients as suffering from lymphedema, a rare vascular disease that requires patients to obtain expensive pumps, braces and other medical devices.
Prosecution witnesses testified that salespeople working for a medical supply house recruited Medicare and Medi-Cal beneficiaries from Filipino communities, telling them they would receive free medical exams at Perry’s clinic.
Assistant U.S. Atty. Paul Rochmes, who prosecuted the case, said the salespeople filled out prescriptions and certificates of medical necessity for the pumps and braces.
Perry then signed the prescriptions and certificates, never consulting with the examining doctors at his clinic.
In addition to the Medicare and Medi-Cal scam, Perry was convicted of making false statements when he filed for bankruptcy in 1996.
He concealed five previous bankruptcies as well as a bank account he owned with his father in Ohio.
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