A Southern California plastic surgeon who fled to Israel to avoid prison for mail fraud and other charges was extradited this week to Los Angeles, where a federal judge Friday ordered him to begin serving his 20-year sentence, authorities said.
David M. Morrow, 75, of Beverly Hills pleaded guilty in 2016 to conspiring to commit mail fraud and filing a false tax return, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office in Los Angeles.
Prosecutors described Morrow, who owned the Morrow Institute in Rancho Mirage, as a greedy and dangerous man who subjected his patients to procedures they didn’t want or need, then billed insurance companies for millions of dollars in fraudulent claims. Morrow operated on some patients without their consent, prosecutors said, leaving them disfigured and suffering from severe complications.
Morrow invented diagnoses to bill insurers for cosmetic surgeries, according to the government: Nose jobs became “deviated septum repair surgeries,” breast augmentations were needed to treat “tuberous breast deformities,” and tummy tucks took care of “umbilical and ventral hernias,” prosecutors said in court documents.
Read the full story at LATimes.com.