Indian-origin doctor gets 9 years jail for health care fraud in US
New York: An Indian-origin doctor has been sentenced to nine years in prison by a US court for committing health care fraud and illegally distributing prescription painkillers.
Pawankumar Jain, 66, a former physician, was sentenced in federal court in Las Cruces, New Mexico to nine years in prison and three years of supervised release for unlawfully dispensing controlled substances and health care fraud, US Attorney John Anderson said.
Jain previously entered guilty pleas in February 2016 to one count of unlawfully dispensing a controlled substance and one count of health care fraud. In his plea agreement, Jain admitted that he previously was licensed to practice medicine in the State of New Mexico and was registered with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to prescribe controlled substances, including pain medication.
He admitted that for several years he operated a high-volume pain management practice in Las Cruces, and frequently performed only cursory examinations of his patients before prescribing narcotics to them without documenting any therapeutic benefit for those drugs in his records.
He specifically admitted examining one patient in November 2009 and that he conducted only a superficial examination of the patient before writing him two prescriptions for methadone that were outside the usual course of medical practice and not for any legitimate medical purpose.
Each prescription was for 270 tablets of 10 mg methadone. Jain further admitted that he committed health care fraud because he knew these unlawful prescriptions would be submitted to federal health insurance Medicare for payment and that he intended for Medicare to pay for the prescriptions.
Jain also acknowledged that the patient died two days after filling the second methadone prescription. According to evidence at the sentencing hearing, the patient died of respiratory depression due to the methadone Jain prescribed. The New Mexico Medical Board suspended Jain's license in June 2012, and revoked his license in December 2012.
Anderson said US law enforcement agencies are committed to working to aggressively target and hold drug traffickers accountable both those who distribute on the street, and those who traffic as physicians writing prescriptions for no legitimate medical purpose.
Doctors who betray our trust and put their own financial gain ahead of the well-being of their patients by prescribing narcotics without medical justification are directly fueling our nation's opioid crisis, he said.
Special Agent in Charge Kyle Williamson of the DEA's El Paso Division said that Jain ignored the oath they take to treat and care for patients who come to them for help, and continued to overprescribe, which eventually resulted in the deaths of four patients.
His sentencing today will send a message to other doctors that they are not above the law and DEA will continue to forcefully pursue and hold them accountable.
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Israel launches first airstrike on Lebanon since ceasefire, accusing Hezbollah of breaching truce
Beirut, Nov 28: The Israeli military on Thursday said its warplanes fired on southern Lebanon after detecting Hezbollah activity at a rocket storage facility, the first Israeli airstrike a day after a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah took hold.
There was no immediate word on casualties from Israel's aerial attack, which came hours after the Israeli military said it fired on people trying to return to certain areas in southern Lebanon. Israel said they were violating the ceasefire agreement, without providing details. Lebanon's state-run National News Agency said two people were wounded.
The back-to-back incidents stirred unease about the agreement, brokered by the United States and France, which includes an initial two-month ceasefire in which Hezbollah members are to withdraw north of the Litani River and Israeli forces are to return to their side of the border. The buffer zone would be patrolled by Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers.
On Thursday, the second day of a ceasefire after more than a year of bloody conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, Lebanon's state news agency reported that Israeli fire targeted civilians in Markaba, close to the border, without providing further details. Israel said it fired artillery in three other locations near the border. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
An Associated Press reporter in northern Israel near the border heard Israeli drones buzzing overhead and the sound of artillery strikes from the Lebanese side.
The Israeli military said in a statement that “several suspects were identified arriving with vehicles to a number of areas in southern Lebanon, breaching the conditions of the ceasefire.” It said troops “opened fire toward them” and would “actively enforce violations of the ceasefire agreement.”
Israeli officials have said forces will be withdrawn gradually as it ensures that the agreement is being enforced. Israel has warned people not to return to areas where troops are deployed, and says it reserves the right to strike Hezbollah if it violates the terms of the truce.
A Lebanese military official said Lebanese troops would gradually deploy in the south as Israeli troops withdraw. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief media.
The ceasefire agreement announced late Tuesday ended 14 months of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah that began a day after Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023 attack out of Gaza, when the Lebanese Hezbollah group began firing rockets, drones and missiles in solidarity.
Israel retaliated with airstrikes, and the conflict steadily intensified for nearly a year before boiling over into all-out war in mid-September. The war in Gaza is still raging with no end in sight.
More than 3,760 people were killed by Israeli fire in Lebanon during the conflict, many of them civilians, according to Lebanese health officials. The fighting killed more than 70 people in Israel — over half of them civilians — as well as dozens of Israeli soldiers fighting in southern Lebanon.
Some 1.2 million people were displaced in Lebanon, and thousands began streaming back to their homes on Wednesday despite warnings from the Lebanese military and the Israeli army to stay out of certain areas. Some 50,000 people were displaced on the Israeli side, but few have returned and the communities near the northern border are still largely deserted.
In Menara, an Israeli community on the border with views into Lebanon, around three quarters of homes are damaged, some with collapsed roofs and burnt-out interiors. A few residents could be seen gathering their belongings on Thursday before leaving again.
