A Tustin man was sentenced to more than a year in federal prison for his part in a bribery and kickback scheme that targeted drug-addicted people with good health insurance.
Kevin M. Dickau, 35, was sentenced on Tuesday to 15 months in federal prison and three years of supervised release after he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit health care fraud, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a news release.
Dickau and Dr. Akikur Mohammad of West Hills pleaded guilty to the scheme in 2020, and at that point, Dickau faced a sentence of up to 10 years. Mohammad was previously featured on KTLA as an expert on addiction and alcoholism.
Dickau, Mohammad and five others worked together in California and multiple other states to “identify and recruit potential patients … who were addicted to heroin or other drugs and who had robust private health insurance,” the release said. Sometimes, that involved giving the patients cash payments, “often as much as several thousand dollars,” the release added.
In exchange for convincing patients to “travel to and enroll in rehabilitation when they otherwise would not have,” recruiters would receive kickbacks from rehab facilities of about $5,000 to $10,000 per patient, prosecutors said.
Dickau and other recruiters “brokered scores of patients to drug treatment facilities around the country, including the ones run by Mohammad” and other conspirators.
“The conspiracy caused millions of dollars of losses for health insurers,” prosecutors said.
As an example, prosecutors pointed to a text message conversation between Mohammad, Dickau and another person on Jan. 24, 2019.
“Dickau sent a patient’s biographical and health insurance information to Mohammad to see if Mohammad would accept the patient at his drug treatment facility,” prosecutors said. “After confirming that the patient had adequate health insurance benefits, Mohammad accepted the patient for admission to his drug treatment facility. The patient enrolled at Mohammad’s drug treatment facility soon after, and Mohammad billed a commercial insurance company over $70,000 for purported services rendered to the patient. The following month. Mohammad paid the marketing company a referral payment of $5,000 for referring the patient.”
