Beverly Hills Surgeon Charged With Exploiting Rehab Patients In $29M Insurance Fraud Scheme
SANTA ANA (CBSLA) – A Beverly Hills surgeon and his girlfriend are charged in a $29 million insurance fraud scheme in which they allegedly paid patients at addiction rehab facilities across Southern California to undergo unnecessary surgeries.
The Orange County District Attorney's Office reported Friday that Dr. Randy Rosen, 57, and his girlfriend, 41-year-old Liza Visamanos, are facing dozens of charges that they hired body brokers to find patients to receive "medically unnecessary" implant surgeries and cortisone shots.
Visamanos owned a drug laboratory called Lotus Laboratories, prosecutors said. Rosen would force his patients to get unneeded drug tests at her lab. Lotus Laboratories is accused of $3 million in fraudulent billing from those tests, the DA's office said.
Rosen and Visamanos were first arrested back on June 30 on a combined 144 counts including money laundering, submitting fraudulent insurance claims and withholding material facts on insurance claims.
The two have pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Rosen's bail was reduced to $16 million Thursday, while Visamanos was set at $3.1 million, the DA's office reports.
Another four people have been also been arrested in the scheme.
"Vulnerable sober living patients who were trying desperately to battle their addictions were treated like human guinea pigs just to make a buck," said O.C. District Attorney Todd Spitzer in a statement Friday. "I refuse to allow these body brokers to exploit and traffic human beings as part of a sick and twisted plot to line their own pockets."
Rosen faces a maximum sentence of 84 years in state prison if convicted as charged, while Visamanos faces 36 years.
