A Suffolk man has pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud health insurance programs through fraudulent claims for braces and other medical equipment.
Julian Latty, 40, and his co-conspirator Jordan Thomas Broome, 37, of Texas, formed a Virginia Beach company called Beach Medical Suppliers LLC in 2017.
Latty is scheduled to be sentenced on Feb. 29, 2024. He faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison.
In March 2023, Broome was sentenced to 5 1/2 years of imprisonment for his role in the conspiracy.
Latty and Broome registered Beach Medical to receive Medicare reimbursements in 2018.
According to court documents, for the next two years, Latty and Broome used Beach Medical to fraudulently bill Medicare for more than $4 million in reimbursements for durable medical equipment, which included back braces and knee braces. They obtained the information of Medicare beneficiaries then paid doctors to sign prescriptions for braces that the beneficiaries did not need.
Between Dec. 4, 2018, and Oct. 7, 2020, Beach Medical billed Medicare for durable medical equipment reimbursement for approximately 2,025 beneficiaries who had no prior relationship with the doctor who signed the prescription.
Beach Medical also billed other health care benefit programs, such as Medicaid and Tricare, for fraudulent claims.
The investigation started when beneficiaries complained to Medicare that they were receiving braces in the mail that they had never requested.
In December 2019, Latty and Broome met with an attorney Beach Medical had retained who advised them that its operations were likely illegal.
However, they continued to submit fraudulent reimbursements until federal authorities executed a search warrant at Beach Medical’s offices in September 2020.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Rebecca Gantt is prosecuting the case.
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Crystal Graham
