California Professional License Defense Blog

Roy Chester Dickson of Yorba Linda, California was indicted by the Orange County Grand Jury on 106 felony counts including money laundering, grand theft, insurance fraud and making false or fraudulent claims. Dickson, an attorney is accused of being a player in the Unity Outpatient Surgery Center scam where three Southern California physicians, Dr. Mario Rosenberg, Dr. Michael Cheeluen and Dr. William Wilson Hapton Jr. are also charged. According to prosecutors, Dickson has been involved in similar criminal conduct in other surgery center clinics in southern California.

Also indicted was Andrew Robert Harnen, the surgery center accountant and bookkeeper. Harnen is accused of filing false tax returns and failing to report over $6 million, paying the doctors and recruiters for their participation in the Unity scam.

According to prosecutors, Unity is the biggest insurance fraud scam in the history of the U.S. with a loss of over $150 million. In this particular scam, the defendants are accused of recruiting over 2,800 healthy people, who from August 2002 to April 2003 traveled to Buena Park to undergo unnecessary medical procedures. In return, the patients received payments between $300-$1,000 per procedure.

Dickson and Harned are being held on $2 million bail and are scheduled to appear in court for their arraignment on July 10, 2008.

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San Francisco transplant surgeon Dr. Hootan Roozrokh is being accused by the California Medical Board of administering large quantities of pain medicine to a prospective organ donor. The allegations stem from the death of 25-year-old Ruben Navarro who was going to have his organs donated upon death. Under state law, a transplant physician cannot be in the operating room of a potential donor until that donor is pronounced dead. The state board complaint further alleges Dr. Roozrokh was "actively monitoring the patient's vital signs for a determination of death."

In addition to the actions taken by the California Medical Board, Dr. Roozrokh’s also faces criminal charges in San Luis Obispo for felony dependent adult abuse in the death of Mr. Navarro. If convicted at trial, Dr. Roozrokh could be sentenced to prison.

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Theodore Swain, 60 was sentenced to 24 years in state prison for stealing $7 million dollars in a Ponzi scheme bilking 100 investors in Southern California. In addition to his prison sentence, Mr. Swain was ordered to pay $6.7 million dollars in restitution to his victims.

Mr. Swain has had a “history of ripping people off with his worthless investment schemes,” says California Attorney General Edmund Brown. “Most recently, he convinced 99 consumers, including a doctor, lawyer and aerospace engineer, to invest tens of thousands of dollars in property which does not exist.”

Between 2003 and 2006, Mr. Swain convinced consumers to invest $1,000 to $1000,000 in mortgage certificates which never existed. Swain was able to manufacture documents, which promised 10% annual returns on real estate projects. “This was a very convincing Ponzi scheme,” said Deputy Attorney General Tawnya Boulan who prosecuted the case jointly with the California Department of Corporations. “Swain was very persuasive and ripped off sophisticated investors by maintaining an appearance of success.”

As is typically done in Ponzi schemes, Swain used new investor capital to pay older investors, allowing him to continue with the fraud for several years. Swain also failed to disclose pertinent investor information allowing his investors to make informed decision in violation California law.

A San Diego jury found Mr. Swain guilty of 15 counts of fraud, 6 counts of grand theft, 3 counts of securities fraud and 3 counts of elder financial abuse. In addition to the substantive charges, Mr. Swain was convicted of sentencing enhancements related to securities fraud called white collar crime enhancements.

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California Attorney General Edmund Brown announced that the state of California was going to create an online database to track prescription drug history in an effort to curb abuse by drug dealers and people who go to several doctors to get several dangerous prescription drugs.

The prescription drug database will give California pharmacists and physicians a real time glimpse of patients prescription history. This technology will help fight prescription drug abuse in California and reduce a financial burden on medical insurance companies. In addition, it will reduce doctor shopping for those who are addicted to prescription drugs and go to several doctors for the same prescription.

The new database named CURES or Controlled Substance Utilization Review and Evaluation System is set to launch in 2009 at a cost of 3 ½ million dollars. While California does have the CURES system in place currently, it is not an online database and can take days for pharmacists and physicians to check a patients drug history. The CURES database carries information of over 86 million schedule II,III, and IV prescription drugs such as Morphine, Vicodin, Oxycodone, Methadone, Codeine

A representative of the California State Board of Pharmacy is quoted as saying "The California State Board of Pharmacy has long been a strong supporter of the CURES system. This new system will reduce drug diversion from pharmacies--it is an important enhancement to patient care and law enforcement."

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