Authorities in New York have moved against an alleged large-scale abuse of the public health system. According to News 12, an indictment has been announced in a Medicaid fraud scheme that prosecutors say totals more than 9 million dollars, one of the larger such cases to surface in the area.
The action is being driven by the state's financial watchdog. New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli is indicting 53-year-old Maxim Grinberg in connection with the scheme, putting a name and a figure to a case built around claims made to Medicaid.
At the heart of the case is a network of medical businesses. The indictment claims that Grinberg operated eight eye care companies, at least four of them based in the local borough, giving him a web of entities through which the alleged fraud is said to have run.
The central accusation concerns treatments that prosecutors say were never provided. The indictment alleges that the companies falsely charged Medicaid for eye surgeries that never even happened, billing the public programme for procedures that, according to investigators, simply did not take place.
The scale of the alleged scheme is significant. Prosecutors put the total value of the fraud at more than 9 million dollars, money drawn from a programme meant to fund genuine medical care for those who rely on it, rather than fictitious operations.
Now Grinberg faces the prospect of a lengthy prison term. If convicted, he could be looking at up to 25 years behind bars, a measure of how seriously authorities are treating the alleged theft of millions from the Medicaid system.