Press Releases
06/28/2021
Attorney General Tong Secures $14 Million Healthcare Fraud Judgment
(Hartford, CT) – Attorney General William Tong secured a $14,982,081 court judgment against Ramil Mansourov over allegations that the former Norwalk primary care physician illegally billed the Connecticut Medical Assistance Program for millions of dollars in services he never provided.An investigation by the Office of the Attorney General and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration found that from 2014 to 2016, while operating the Family Health Urgent Care Center in Norwalk, Dr. Mansourov fabricated and submitted thousands of false claims for reimbursement for services never provided to Connecticut Medicaid patients. The investigation found that he fraudulently billed the State for office visits, home visits, and nursing home visits using billing codes that provided him the maximum reimbursement rates. In some instances, he billed for services in Connecticut on dates when he was working in Kentucky, or vacationing in Florida, the Dominican Republic, or Italy. The investigation found that he defrauded the Connecticut Medical Assistance Program of $4,994,027.
The Office of the Attorney General filed suit against Mansourov under the False Claims Act, enabling the State to obtain a judgment in Hartford Superior Court this month for three times the amount of damages sustained due to Mansourov’s fraudulent conduct. The Office of the U.S. Attorney simultaneously filed criminal charges.
When Mansourov learned in 2017 that federal agents sought to arrest him on healthcare fraud and money laundering charges, he fled to Canada. Canadian authorities apprehended him and turned him over to federal law enforcement. Mansourov was convicted in 2019 in the U.S. District Court of Connecticut, and sentenced to a prison term of 87 months. He is presently incarcerated.
“Ramil Mansourov engaged in a massive, brazen fraud over the course of many years, robbing the State of millions of dollars. He is now paying a heavy price for those illegal acts. In conjunction with our federal and state partners, the Office of the Attorney General will not tolerate those who abuse and defraud our state’s healthcare programs,” said Attorney General Tong. “I thank the attorneys and investigators in the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, the United States’ Attorney’s Office, the Department of Social Services, and our office who aggressively pursued this case for multiple years, and those in our office who have now secured the maximum justice for the State.”
“On behalf of the Connecticut Medical Assistance Program and Medicaid enrollees, I would like to thank the Attorney General’s Office, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and Department of Social Services investigators for their skilled and dedicated work on this especially appalling case of medical fraud,” said Social Services Commissioner Deidre S. Gifford.
Anyone with knowledge of suspected fraud or abuse in the public healthcare system is asked to contact the Attorney General’s Antitrust and Government Program Fraud Department at 860-808-5040 or by email at ag.fraud@ct.gov; the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit at 860-258-5986 or by email at conndcj@ct.gov; or the Department of Social Services fraud reporting hotline at 1-800-842-2155, online at www.ct.gov/dss/reportingfraud, or by email to providerfraud.dss@ct.gov.
Forensic Fraud Examiner Kevin Jeffko, Legal Investigator Peter Harrington and Forensic Fraud Examiner Thomas Martin, Paralegal Holly MacDonald and Assistant Attorneys General Richard Porter and Michael Cole, and Jeremy Pearlman, Chief of the Antitrust and Government Program Fraud Section, assisted the Attorney General in this matter.
- Twitter: @AGWilliamTong
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Media Contact:
Elizabeth Benton
elizabeth.benton@ct.gov
Consumer Inquiries:
860-808-5318
attorney.general@ct.gov