Prosecution To File A Second Amended Indictment For Landmark Medical Case In Orange County.
By Lonce LaMon - January 19, 2015
In Orange County Superior Court, in court room C-45 in the morning of last Friday, January 16th 2015, Judge Thomas Goethals ordered the prosecution to file a 2nd amended indictment by March 2nd 2015 in the case of the People vs. Kareem Ahmed, et al. There are fourteen other defendants in this case involving 200 million dollars in alleged workers’ compensation billing fraud for inappropriately prescribing compound medications to workers’ compensation patients.
Kareem Ahmed is accused of doling out 25 million dollars in bribes to doctors to prescribe the medications. The original indictment was filed on June 17th 2014. This case has been dubbed by the court as the Landmark Medical case.
Shaddi Kamiabipour, Deputy District Attorney, appeared in the court room wearing a brown sweater top and a brown skirt, with brown swede boots. Defense attorney for Kareem Ahmed, Benjamin Gluck, in a grey-green suit and sporting his usual sparse but close cropped beard, made the argument that the original indictment had errors in every count—all 558—and there were even errors calculating the wrong statutes.
Gluck said to the prosecution and to the judge, “For all of these you have to at least agree on one act. They never identified which act it was. It is a problem in this case.”
Evette Charbonnet’s attorney, Jean Nelson, argued that “There’s a clear rule out there. The People can amend typographical errors. But not this 2nd type of mistake. You cannot change by adding counts.”
Evette Charbonnet was Landmark Medical Management’s marketing manager. Kareem Ahmed is the CEO.
Benjamin Gluck argued the most and the longest. He went on and on before the court about all the mistakes in the indictment—which continued through the first amended indictment which was filed on November 21st 2014. He pointed out how the People say nothing in response to his first point, how they added new counts, and how they changed the manslaughter charge.
“They need to go back to the Grand Jury and get a new Indictment,” Gluck told the court.
But after a long expatiation of Gluck’s very articulate harangue, with the judge listening patiently and intently, Gluck finally quit talking with this final statement, “We ought to build it (this case) on a platform that is not so shaky.”
Judge Thomas Goethals finally spoke with this, “This is an interesting situation. It is something of a hybrid situation. California is forgiving whereas other jurisdictions aren’t so forgiving. The indictment can be amended.”
He stated he is preparing for different 995 motions and is promising to study the Grand Jury transcripts more thoroughly. He explained that when he sustained some demurrers he predicted what The People would do. He predicted they would likely change 40 counts into 400 counts.
Deputy District Attorney Shaddi Kamiabipour, left background, and Defense Attorney for Kareem Ahmed, Benjamin Gluck, right foreground, wait for the judge to return to the bench on September 12th 2014. Copyright Lonce LaMon; all rights reserved
“Mr. Gluck mentioned a lot of issues in the abstract,” Judge Goethals went on. “It’s time to move from the abstract to the specific. In California, the law is forgiving…
“These are interesting, aggressive legal theories. Every theory was new at one point.”
Benjamin Gluck responded, “I respectfully disagree with that.”
The judge in turn said, “The demurrers are overruled. Denied.”
Now, the second amended indictment is on its way. Judge Goethals followed up by saying to the defense attorneys, “I would say, logically, for the second level 995s—I would suggest that less is more—file a 995 attacking the sufficiency of the evidence. Why is it inadequate to establish probable cause? I want a spirited discussion of why evidence is insufficient.”
The next pre-trial date has been set for March 13th 2015. The previously set trial date of February 2, 2015 has been vacated.
Twitter account: @loncelamon
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