A former accountant from Encino was sentenced to 51 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to healthcare fraud and tax fraud charges. Eli Gichon, the owner of Airport Medical Supply in Van Nuys, was ordered by United States District Judge Manuel L. Real to pay restitution of $4.1 million to Medicare and $1.4 million to the Internal Revenue Service and to spend 3 years on supervised release after serving his prison sentence. According to court records, Gichon admitted he prepared false claims for durable medical equipment, such as power wheelchairs and accessories, hospital beds, and mattresses. The claims were made using information from people that were recruited by marketers for Airport Medical Supply who were promised cash and/or free durable medical equipment in exchange for the information. According to the charges, Gichon created false invoices from a non-existent medical supply company to substantiate that AMS had purchased the non-existent durable medical equipment. Christopher Hill and Feliciano Dy who worked as marketers for AMS were also indicted on multiple counts of health care fraud. In addition to the health care fraud scheme, Gichon admitted that he subscribed to a false tax return for the 2006 tax year, upon which he failed to report over $912,000. For the years 2004, 2005, and 2006, he received over $3.8 million in receipts from Medicare through AMS that he did not report on his personal income tax returns. Gichon’s failure to report the income to the IRS resulted in tax due of over $1.4 million.
