Los Angeles Criminal Defense Attorney Blog

Brace yourself for a slew of high profile Southern California medicare fraud arrests.

According to a July 10 article in Los Angeles Times, “Medicare Anti-fraud Detection System Launched,” federal officials have set up a powerful new predictive modeling system to identify Medicare fraud and punish syndicates and individuals who bill for false claims and engage in other types of fraud.

The LAT describes the computer predictive modeling system – which was honed in South Florida over a few years – as working “much like credit card systems that raise alerts about suspicious purchases – such as 20 pairs of shoes or unusually large sales – to help block criminals from using stolen cards or IDs.”

Peter Budetti, the Head of the Medicare’s anti-fraud initiative, noted that Medicare scams tend to get replicated across the country when they work. Budetti said “these problems migrate from one part of the country to others fairly quickly.” Federal officers have now set up strike forces in Los Angeles and other major cities to investigate criminal networks. And investigators have been hitting back – hard – against suspected “fraudsters” in places like Michigan, South Florida, and elsewhere.

If you or someone you care about has been hit with recent charges of Southern California insurance fraud, Los Angeles credit card fraud, or Southern California white collar crime, a competent Los Angeles criminal defense attorney can help you deal with the plethora of challenges that you and your family face. These go beyond simply confronting the scary charges against you – which can lead to many years of jail time.

Mr. Kraut is no stranger to Los Angeles criminal law. He spent 14 plus years as a Deputy District Attorney for L.A. (after receiving a Harvard Law School education) prior to “switching sides” and representing defendants. He has a superb jury trial record, excellent relationships with local prosecutors and others in the legal community, and a thorough knowledge of relevant law. He can help with even complex and sophisticated charges.

Pro football fans were dealt another setback last week – more Long Beach DUI bad news. The NFL has been shellacked this year: possible season ending/shortening labor strikes; concerns about players' long-term brain health; multiple DUI arrests at both the NFL and college level.

Steelers' wide receiver Hines Ward added to the chaos the weekend before last. Fortunately for Southlanders, Ward was not arrested for DUI in Pasadena, DUI in Glendale, Los Angeles DUI, or Burbank DUI. Ward got booked in DeKalb County, GA early last Saturday morning. According to USA Today, “the police report… claims Ward hit a curve and had difficulty remaining in his lane. It said he smelled of alcohol, though Ward said he had just two beers three hours previously. He refused the breath test upon arriving at the jail.”

According to Ward’s representation, the defendant claims that he was not impaired by alcohol while he was driving. But this case will not fade from the limelight anytime soon (at least if Baltimore Ravens fans have their way), given Ward's celebrity. He won Super Bowl XL’s most valuable player award as well as this year’s Dancing with the Stars.

His court hearing is scheduled for October 6th. If convicted of misdemeanor DUI, he could face a $1,000 fine on top of a full year behind bars.

So it’s clearly an up and down year for Ward. And, in that sense, his case presents us with an important object lesson. Many people assume that Long Beach DUI arrests only happen to people who are on the “down and down” – who are living too fast, ignoring safety rules, and generally “asking for it.” But this stereotype does not necessarily hold true. Everything in your life can be going great, and you can still get tagged with a serious Long Beach DUI charge.

What’s important is to recognize your reality – the potential trouble that you might be in and your potential resources. Rather than “reinventing the wheel” and trying to figure out your best possible strategy by yourself, you might benefit tremendously from a free consultation with Long Beach’s Kraut Law Group (444 West Ocean, Suite 800 Long Beach, California 90802 Phone: (562) 531-7454). Michael Kraut is not only a very experienced Los Angeles criminal defense attorney, but he is also a former prosecutor. His experience in both positions gives him a very unique vantage, which he uses to deliver excellent results for his clients, get results at jury trials, and even impress legal colleagues, peers, and the major media.

Continue reading " Long Beach DUI Sports News: Pittsburgh Steelers WR Hines Arrest Shocks the NFL " »

If you or someone you care about has recently been arrested or indicted for Southern California Medicare fraud, you have company.

As this blog regularly reports, government investigators are cracking down, big time, on entitlement fraud across the country. One of the biggest news stories on this front came out of Chicago last week: 43-year-old Jacinto Gabriel, Jr. was indicted in connection with a $20 million scam to defraud Medicare. Gabriel, Jr. owned a variety of businesses, including Perpetual Home Health, Incorporated and Legacy Home Healthcare Services. He submitted millions of dollars in false claims for services never delivered (or price inflated or medically unnecessary services).

Allegedly, Perpetual Home Health, Inc. – by itself – submitted 14,000 different claims between the middle of 2006 and early 2011 and collected $38 million in payments from Medicare. This made it one of the biggest recipients of Medicare funds in all of Illinois. Gabriel, Jr. allegedly used the money he collected from Medicare to gamble, buy automobiles, purchase real estate at home and abroad, provide kickbacks and gifts to physicians for patient referrals, and more.

One can only speculate about the potential punishments that Gabriel might face, including jail time, a destroyed reputation, massive fines and forced reimbursements to victims and to the government, and other problems.

If you or someone you care about has been charged with a similar kind of Southern California Medicare fraud, Los Angeles insurance fraud, or Southern California white collar crime, you might be extremely fearful of the long jail sentence, massive fines, and destruction of your professional and personal reputation.

The question is: What do you do now?

A Los Angeles criminal defense attorney, like Michael Kraut of the Kraut Law Group, can help you understand your current reality and face down the challenges heading your way. It’s not resourceful to deny your situation or wait to get help.

The sooner you acknowledge the charges against you -- identify the outcomes you want to avoid and outcomes you want to achieve -- the easier it will be to map out a strategy to get you to where you want to be. Your success or failure can hinge on the quality of your legal representation. Attorney Michael Kraut is an extremely experienced defense attorney – he’s also a very successful former prosecutor, and he taps into his prosecutorial knowledge and relationships to help his clients get the results they need.

On Tuesday, a shocking "not guilty" verdict was handed down in the "Trial of the Century" murder trial of Casey Anthony, stunning the Los Angeles violent criminal defense community along with the rest of the world.

In case you have been living in a cable news vacuum (in which case, good for you), here's a quick recap. In 2008, the defendant, Casey Anthony, allegedly killed her two-year-old daughter, Caylee, and then went out partying right afterwards.

Motivated by the particularly grisly inhuman-ness of the alleged crime, prosecutors sought to convict Ms. Anthony on a capital murder charge. This could have resulted in her execution, had she been convicted. But the jury found her not guilty of first-degree murder, aggravated child abuse, and aggravated manslaughter (although she was convicted for several lesser offenses).

Without dissecting the case any more than the blogosphere and media already have -- Jay Leno, for one, stuck his foot in his mouth the other day by making a tone deaf joke about the trial -- let's take a look at lessons the case can teach Los Angeles criminal defendants.

#1. The "reasonable doubt" standard is alive and well.

Prosecutors struggled to convict Ms. Anthony because evidence connecting her with Caylee's death was primarily circumstantial. If your Los Angeles domestic violence attorney can highlight a similarly vigorous "reasonable doubt" defense for you, the jury should acquit, even if the majority of evidence (technically known as the "preponderance of the evidence") stacks up against you. Note that, in a civil case, the bar for prosecutors is far lower. The preponderance of the evidence rule applies. So even if you are just 50.001% guilty, then you are guilty.

#2. A "fair and just" result is often in the eye of the beholder.

The Southern California justice system is set up to mete out justice in a fair, rule-driven process. But does this process approach its Platonic ideal? Does it deliver justice 100% of the time? No way. The system is run by human beings. Human beings charged with interpreting complex, highly technical laws and processes. Mistakes get made.

Furthermore, the determination of whether an outcome is just or not hinges on subjective features of the decision. More simply: whose side your own influences your judgment WAY more than you think.

Most people who followed the Anthony trial wanted -- practically begged -- for a conviction. They found the decision unjust. But Anthony supporters found the decision fair and just. This all suggests that the very notion of fairness cannot be defined in the abstract -- it must take place within a cognitive and cultural context.

#3. The quality of your attorney can make an enormous difference.

An experienced Los Angeles criminal defense and homicide lawyer, such as Michael Kraut of the Kraut Law Group -- particularly someone who has worked as both a prosecutor and a defense attorney, like Mr. Kraut has -- can anticipate the other side's arguments, develop a strategy to defuse or circumvent them, and help you stick to a smart game plan.

Ask anyone in law enforcement how to end the problem of Long Beach DUI, and they will tell you that we need better enforcement, more measurement of the problem, better education and tools for law enforcement, drivers, road engineers and policymakers. These are good points. And if we did indeed measure DUIs better with richer metrics, chances are we could see a decline in Pasadena DUI, Glendale DUI, Burbank DUI and Los Angeles DUI arrests. That being said, statistics may not be as useful as many bright-eyed and bushy-tailed pundits believe they are. As the old saw goes, “there are lies, damned lies and statistics.”

Case in point: consider a small story published in a Kansas newspaper, the Wichita Eagle, last week: “Wichita police see spike in DUI arrests.” Over a relatively non-special weekend, police saw a jump in DUI arrests of more than 50% – 31 arrests, up from the usual 21 DUI arrests for the weekend. Traffic accidents also increased from 70 to 98. This is a statistically significant shift, by any measure, and law enforcement officials and local prognosticators jumped on the story to immediately develop explanations for the surge. Wichita Eagle posited “there are lot of outdoor activities at this time of year… and that increases the opportunities for drunk driving to occur.” That said, the magazine concluded with this statement: “DUI arrests were made all over Wichita…and couldn’t be linked to any specific event.”

What if the surge was just a random fluctuation? Sounds impossible?

It turns out that statistics don’t work quite the way that most people believe that they do. In any given city, on any given weekend, one might expect a surprising surge – 50% or even more – as part of the random background statistical noise. In other words, the spike need not tie into any specific event because it really was random. It only appeared to have meaning because the statistics were considered just in the context of Wichita instead of in the context of the whole nation.

Think about it this way: say you were to flip a coin six times in a row. What are the odds that you flip heads each time? Here is the quick answer: 1 in 64 (1/2*1/2*1/2*1/2*1/2*1/2). If you pull out a coin and ever do this experiment, chances are pretty good (63 out of 64) that you will not get heads every time. But 1 out of every 64 readers of this blog post will! And to that person, this post may seem like magic. In fact, it’s not. Random events can look like something more than random when viewed out of context. Thus, the spike in Wichita DUIs might not have been anything at all. It might have been something… but there is not really a clean and clear way to tell.

The same thinking should apply to study of Long Beach DUI statistics.

On a more practical note, if you are in need of the services of an experienced Los Angeles criminal defense attorney, Long Beach’s Kraut Law Group (444 West Ocean, Suite 800 Long Beach, California 90802 Phone: (562) 531-7454) may be able to steer you in a good direction. Attorney Michael Kraut is an experienced prosecutor who is respected by legal peers and by major news media as a maven of Los Angeles DUI law. He can help you understand your rights, develop a strategy, and ensure that you make smart decisions going forward to protect your rights as a defendant.

Continue reading " Long Beach DUI Statistics: What Can They Really Tell Us? " »