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Shaddi Kamiabipour, Deputy District Attorney of the Orange County District Attorney’s office, has been honored by the Coalition Against Insurance Fraud (CAIF) and named 2017 Prosecutor of the Year.  This award has been bestowed upon her for her extensive work prosecuting medical and workers’ compensation insurance fraud cases. 

Shaddi was presented with the award earlier in this week, Tuesday December 12^th, in Washington D.C. at CAIF’s annual meeting at the Omni Shoreham Hotel.   CAIF is a non-profit alliance of insurers, consumer groups, and government agencies combating all forms of insurance fraud.  Each year, CAIF recognizes prosecutors whose outstanding ability and professional dedication to fighting insurance fraud merit the respect and admiration of prosecutors nationwide.

Shaddi has battled some fiercely challenging fraud cases in recent years against ferocious defense attorneys who are powerful litigators.  She has been battling fraudster Sim Hoffman, M.D. since an indictment which began in 2011 and then was dismissed on a successful 995 motion won by the defense in December 2013.  She said at that time, “It’s just a temporary set-back.”   So she refiled the case as a complaint which has now become an information.   On November 7^th 2017, the California Court of Appeal, Fourth Appellate District, Division Three ruled in her favor with her co-counsel, Yvette Patko, stating that yes, multiple acts can be aggregated as one offense within a single count.  Now Dr. Hoffman looks imminently down the barrel of his trial.  

Shaddi Kamiabipour, right, returns to court after lunch on October 1, 2015 with expert witness Dr. Michel Cramer-Bournemann, a sleep specialist, who testified in Sim Hoffman, M.D.'s Preliminary Hearing.  It came out in Cramer-Bournemann's testimony that reports made in Hoffman's Better Sleeping Medical Center contained information that some patients had life-threatening sleep apnea.  No communications were ever made to those patients about their conditions.   photo by Lonce Lamonte, all rights reserved  

In May 2017, Shaddi procured guilty pleas from Jeffrey Campau, Landon Mirallegro, and Abraham Khorshad in the Aspen Medical Resources fraud case and the Regional Imaging—Elite Diagnostics fraud case.  Both cases defrauded workers' compensation payers out of tens of millions of dollars.  Regional Imaging—Elite Diagnostics only involved Campau and Mirallegro.  After two years of prosecuting the Aspen trio beginning in 2014, Shaddi figured out that Regional Imaging was illegally billing and was being illegally run.   

She saw that Elite Diagnostics (Regional Imaging Center) was an LLC and not a Professional Medical Corporation.  This made it illegal for Elite to bill for medical services.  They were only providing the technical aspect—providing MRIs with an MRI machine which was run by non-medical professionals.   The images were sent out to freelance radiologists who simply interpreted the images and wrote the reports from the outside.  But there was neither a medical director nor a supervising radiologist on staff or on site at Regional Imaging – Elite Diagnostics.  Thus, the billings were misleading and illegal.  They were “upcoded” and billed at a code rate for medical services and not as simple technical procedures at a much lesser fee. Plus, they were paying kick-backs for patient referrals.

She learned a lot about radiology and how a radiology practice should be run from the Sim Hoffman, M.D. case.  Hoffman is a radiologist based in Buena Park.   So, Shaddi took her knowledge from that case, having gone through a steep learning curve which started in 2011, and applied it to Regional Imaging.  She got that center shut down.

The joint restitution sentenced to these three defendants was $8,621,845.76.  Their remaining Workers' Compensation Appeals Board (WCAB) liens, valued at $139,752,925.77, were dismissed. 

Presently, Shaddi is prosecuting the Landmark Medical case against owner Kareem Ahmed and fifteen other defendants at the same time that she’s spearheading the case against Christopher and Tanya King.  The Kings mass produced compound pain creams via pharmacies and paid kick-backs to doctors to prescribe them. Landmark Medical did the same thing, all to the tune of milions of dollars charged to and paid by workers' compensation payers. 

The Kings were charged by the OCDA in April of this year.  Christopher King has already pleaded guilty to insurance fraud and conspiracy, and is currently negotiating his sentence. 

Shaddi Kamiabipour, right, leaves Orange County Superior Court in Santa Ana on December 2nd 2016 with co-counsel Debbie Jackson. This day Shaddi and Debbie attended proceedings on the Aspen and Regional Imaging cases.  By May 2017, all three defendants had entered guilty pleas.  photo by Lonce Lamonte, all rights reserved.  

District Attorney Tony Rackauckas said about Shaddi, “This award is a tremendous acknowledgement of the hard work and dedication Shaddi puts into each and every case she prosecutes.  She is passionate about protecting consumers from fraudulent insurance crimes which negatively impact businesses and our economy.  Shaddi is very deserving of the Coalition Against Insurance Fraud’s ‘Prosecutor of the Year’ award, this recognition reflects her excellent work as well as those who work alongside her in the OCDA’s exceptional fraud unit.”  Tony congratulates Shaddi on her achievements here. 

“I feel very honored,” Shaddi said, “to be recognized with this prestigious award and I share this award with all members of the OCDA Insurance Fraud Unit who work tirelessly to assist me in prosecuting these cases.  It is not easy to hold individuals who have political connections and financial resources accountable for their crimes.   I would be remiss if I didn’t give credit to District Attorney Tony Rackauckas, who has supported our efforts to vigorously prosecute these individuals and become trailblazers in this area of law.” 

lonce@adjustercom.com; Lonce LaMon; all rights reserved by adjustercom and Lonce LaMon; www.adjustercom.com, www.adjuster.com

Written also in conjunction with the News Release from the Orange County District Attorney's office dated Wednesday, December 13th 2017; thank you...