Man sentenced to 15 years in prison for role in bogus medical clinic

A Tujunga man was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison Monday for his role in a $20 million fraud scheme that used a sham medical clinic in Glendale to defraud Medicare and Medi-Cal with phony prescriptions.

Artak Ovsepian, 33, was found guilty after a trial last year of conspiracy to commit health-care fraud, aggravated identity theft, conspiracy to misbrand pharmaceutical drugs, making false statements to the federal government and conspiracy to use other people’s identities in furtherance of fraud.

Operators of Manor Medical Imaging in Glendale employed an unlicensed medical practitioner, Nuritsa Grigoryan, of Glendale, to prescribe “expensive” anti-psychotic medications using a licensed doctor’s name, and later billed and rebilled the government for the drugs, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

By manipulating files of patients who were recruited or whose identities were stolen, operators made it seem as though the individuals -- which included elderly and homeless people, as well as veterans -- were being legitimately treated.

After the prescriptions were filled, the drugs were sold on the black market and redistributed to pharmacies, where they’d be used in new claims filed to Medicare and Medi-Cal.

Medicare and Medi-Cal paid more than $9 million of the more than $20 million in fraudulent billings, officials said.

Two others -- Kenneth Johnson, 48, of Ladera Heights, and Grigoryan, 49 -- were also convicted after last year’s trial, and about a dozen others have been convicted in connection with the scheme.

Johnson, the doctor who pre-signed thousands of blank prescriptions that were later filled out by co-conspirators, is slated to be sentenced in November.

Meanwhile, Grigoryan, who pretended to have an American medical license when she saw homeless patients and filled out the phony prescriptions pre-signed by Johnson, reportedly fled the country after her conviction and remains a fugitive, officials said.