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The Lancaster woman was convicted Friday of receiving an illegal kickback of more than $330,000 for referrals to patients to two hospice companies that removed more than $3.2 million in Medicare through billing for medically unnecessary services.
According to the U.S. Lawyer’s Office, 66-year-old Curry Jean Black was found guilty in a four-day trial in Los Angeles federal court where he received a patient referral fee.
US District Judge Andre Bilotte Jr. passed the verdict on July 25th.
Dr. Victor Contreras, a Ventura County doctor who worked at two Pasadena Hospices, pleaded guilty to one count of medical fraud last year, and was sentenced to Barr two years later in December 2024, ordering a $3.28 million repayment.
The main defendant in the case, former Pasadena resident Juanita Anteno, 62, is still large and is believed to be in the Philippines, prosecutors said.
According to the 14 count indictment from July 2016 to February 2019, Contreras and Antenor planned to fraudulent Medicare by filing false and fraudulent claims of Hospice Services, which filed Arcadia Hospice Provider Inc. and Saint Mariam Hospice Inc. Antenor Controller.
Medicare covers hospice services for terminally ill patients only. This means that if the illness goes through a normal course, there is a life expectancy of less than six months.
Contreras admitted that the patient misstates that the patient suffered from terminal illness in order to qualify for a Hospice Service covered by Medicare.
Contreras did so despite him not talking to the patients’ primary care physicians and not to those primary care physicians about the patient’s condition. Medicare was paid for claims endorsed by Contreras’ false assessment and recognition and patient re-recognition.
Prosecutors say Antenor paid illegal kickbacks to black people and other so-called marketers because he was introduced to two hospice companies.
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