Orange County Attorney and Accountant Indicted on $154 Million Surgery Center Scam
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.
