By Dave Andrusko
According to the Philadelphia Daily News, the office of District Attorney Seth Williams is “tying up loose ends– and that includes mulling medical-fraud charges against Gosnell.”
Dana DiFilippo writes, “Buried in January’s exhaustive grand-jury report on the West Philly abortionist–charged with killing seven viable babies and one adult patient–was this detail: Gosnell allegedly scammed insurance companies and defrauded a nonprofit fund for poor women to pad his already-packed pockets.”
As part of tying up “loose ends,” David Augenbraun, chief of the D.A.’s insurance-fraud unit, told the Daily News “We’re reviewing it for possible investigation and charges.”
“I really don’t know much about it,” said Gosnell’s attorney, Jack McMahon. “The murder charges are our priority right now. I just got discovery and the grand-jury notes, and they tell me that’s 6,200 pages. Insurance fraud is a serious charge, but it’s just not our focus right now.”
DiFilippo writes that the alleged insurance infractions took “several forms.”
“He hired two medical-school graduates to pose as doctors and billed insurance companies for higher-priced physicians’ visits, even though fake doctors Steven Massof and Eileen O’Neill had no credentials or license to practice medicine, according to the grand jury,” DiFilippo writes. “For this alleged offense, Gosnell, Massof and O’Neill all were charged with theft by deception and conspiracy.
“The report says Gosnell lied to the Delaware Pro-Choice Medical Fund, directing his workers to invent Delaware addresses for his patients, no matter where they lived, so the fund would cover their abortions.”
DiFilippo cites one other example from the grand jury report. “Gosnell used the name of family physician Agnes Simmons, who used to work in his family practice, to trick her insurance company into reimbursing him.” Simmons “vehemently denied the allegations and insisted she isn’t under investigation before booting a Daily News reporter out of her West Philadelphia medical office earlier this month.”
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