News from the U.S. Attorney’s Office Eastern District

News from the U.S. Attorney’s Office Eastern District

From Cody Hiland

Eastern District of Arkansas Little Rock husband and wife sentenced on multiple charges related to tax fraud LITTLE ROCK – Cody Hiland, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas, Kevin Caramucci, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the IRS-Criminal Investigation Dallas Field Office, and Gary Smith, Special Agent in Charge, Southern Field Division, Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA), announced that Chief United States District Judge Brian S. Miller has sentenced John and Wendy Dunn for their roles in defrauding the IRS.

In Monday’s hearing, Judge Miller sentenced John Dunn, 64, of Little Rock, to 33 months’ imprisonment, followed by three years of supervised release and ordered him to pay $437,053.84 in restitution to the IRS on one felony count of conspiracy to defraud the government.

In a hearing today, Judge Miller then sentenced Dunn’s wife, Wendy Dunn, 51, of Little Rock, to five years of probation and ordered her to pay $ 127,401.18 in restitution after she earlier pleaded guilty to five misdemeanor counts for willful failure to file tax returns.

According to public records, from approximately November 2001 through September 2016, John Dunn conspired with others to defraud the United States for the purpose of obstructing the IRS in the assessment and collection of income taxes. Since at least 2002, John Dunn and Wendy Dunn, operated a quasi-financial consulting business; however, they failed to file business and personal tax returns reporting this income.

During an interview in September 2011, John Dunn lied to federal agents when he said he timely filed his federal income tax returns each and every year and accused the IRS of hiding his returns. John Dunn also falsely told federal agents that neither he nor his wife had been employed for many years, but that a family inheritance allowed them to live in their $500,000 residence John Dunn utilized a false social security number on his bank accounts to disguise his ownership and made numerous false and frivolous complaints against IRS employees in order to thwart the IRS ’ collection and investigative efforts.

John Dunn filed bankruptcy, and with the assistance of co-defendant Nina Sue Williams, created fake tax returns with small amounts of income that he backdated and provided to the United States Bankruptcy Court to conceal his business activities and true earnings. In addition, John Dunn wrote the word “Gift” in the memo line of client checks he received for services in order to disguise the true nature of the payments. He also attempted to persuade these clients to make false statements to federal investigators to prevent his prosecution.

John and Wendy Dunn both pleaded guilty in June 2018. Nina Sue Williams pleaded guilty in May 2018 to making a false statement to the IRS and willfully failing to file income tax returns. In November 2018, Williams was sentenced to 24 months in prison and ordered to pay $ 103,201 in restitution to the IRS.

The investigation was conducted by IRS Criminal Investigation and TIGTA.

*** Dallas-area woman becomes seventh person to plead guilty in multi-million dollar tricare kickback scheme LITTLE ROCK – Cody Hiland, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas, Diane Upchurch, Special Agent in Charge of the Little Rock Field Office of the FBI, and Artie DeLaneuvilie, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the Dallas Regional Office of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Inspector General (HHS-OIG), announced the guilty plea today of Jennifer Sorenson, 41, of McKinney, Texas, to conspiring to violate the Anti-Kickback Statute.

In October of this year.

Brad Duke, 44, of Little Rock, pleaded guilty to orchestrating a conspiracy to violate the Anti-Kickback Statute that involved an unnamed Medical Assistant and five unnamed Patient Recruiters. All six have since pleaded guilty before Chief United States District Judge Brian S.

Miller, culminating with Sorenson’s guilty plea today. The group includes Charlotte Leija, 38, of Conway (previously identified as Medical Assistant 1) and Michael “Chance” Beeman, 49, of Maumelle, Michael Sean Brady, 50, of Little Rock, Jason Greene, 31, of Nashville, Tennessee, Brian Means, 44, of Fort Smith, and Sorenson (previously identified as Patient Recruiters 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, respectively).

Duke marketed drugs for a Mississippi compounding pharmacy, earning commission whenever affiliated doctors prescribed its drugs. For a time in 2014 and 2015, TRICARE (our military’s health insurer) paid exorbitant sums—up to tens of thousands of dollars per patient, per month—for certain compounded drugs. Duke sought to capitalize on this by paying one set of kickbacks to Patient Recruiters to send him TRICARE beneficiary information and another set of kickbacks to Leija to rubber stamp prescriptions in their names.

In less than one year, the scheme generated over $ 10 million in compound drug prescriptions for over 100 TRICARE beneficiaries hailing from as far west as Chula Vista, California, to as far east as Foxborough, Massachusetts.

At guilty pleas over the previous weeks, Leija admitted inserting the name of the Little Rock doctor for whom she worked onto prescriptions without his knowledge, whilePatient Recruiters acknowledged using a variety of methods to round up TRICARE beneficiaries, such as offering them cash and gift cards to receive the drugs and paying subordinates (including current and former members of the military) to recruit still more TRICARE beneficiaries on their behalf. For her part, during today’s hearing Sorenson admitted engaging a network of subordinates that included a member of the Army National Guard, through which she recruited over 20 TRICARE beneficiaries for Duke.