This is wild.
A jury just convicted Violetta Mailyan, 45, of Glendale, California, in what the feds are calling the largest Botox fraud scheme in U.S. history. The woman raked in over $24 million from Medicare in just four years for "treating" chronic migraines with Botox injections.
From the FBI in Los Angeles via X:
In what is considered the largest #Botox fraud scheme in the United States, a jury in Los Angeles convicted a California doctor on Tuesday in a $45 million scheme to defraud #Medicare by submitting claims for Botox injections that were never provided and medically unnecessary, and for obstructing the investigation by manipulating and altering medical records in an attempt to mislead criminal investigators.
Who would've thought something like this could happen in California of all places?
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Oh, literally everybody (except liberals, of course).
More from the FBI:
Violetta Mailyan, 45, of Glendale, owned and operated a clinic that purported to provide beauty and cosmetic services. Although Medicare reimburses medical providers for Botox injections when necessary to treat documented cases of chronic migraines, Mailyan billed and received payments for thousands of injections that were never provided or were provided only for cosmetic purposes or for patients whose primary care physicians had not referred them for treatment of chronic migraines.
Evidence at trial showed that Mailyan billed for providing injections when she was actually on vacation in Mexico, Hawaii, and within the United States, and when her clinic was closed. Evidence also showed that Mailyan injected a Medicare beneficiary who was incarcerated in federal prison at the time.
Her clinic, Healthy Way Medical Center, was supposedly in the beauty and cosmetic game, but somehow figured out how to milk Medicare for tens of millions.
But wait, it gets better.
When the feds started sniffing around, Mailyan didn't just delete some files like a normal crook. She went full amateur-hour spy novel and started altering medical records, backdating claims, and fabricating patient histories to make it look like these poor Medicare beneficiaries were suffering from debilitating migraines that only her magic needle could fix. She even provided the fake documents to investigators.
Bold strategy, Cotton!
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Believe it or not, she used all that sweet taxpayer loot to buy herself a Tesla Model X, a Cybertruck, millions in brokerage accounts, multiple properties, and luxury collectibles like a $12,000 17th-century crossbow and fancy paintings.
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Mailyan was convicted on nine counts of wire fraud and three counts of obstruction. She's looking at up to 20 years per wire fraud count.
Her sentencing is in September.
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