Brooklyn psychiatrist pleads guilty to fraud scheme

October 30, 2013 By Charisma L. Miller, Esq. Brooklyn Daily Eagle

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Brooklyn psychiatrist Mikhail Presman, 56, pleaded guilty to health care fraud in Brooklyn federal court Wednesday.

Presman, a former doctor with the Department of Veteran Affairs, was charged with submitting false Medicare claims and unjustly receiving over $2.8 million in Medicare payments. According to the indictment, “between 2006 and 2012, Presman submitted claims for home medical visits for substantially every day of the year – seven days a week, 365 days a year,” for patients he supposedly assisted while off duty.

After a surveillance effort conducted by the Department of Health and Human Services, it was revealed that on several occasions, after Presman worked a full eight-hour shift at the VA, he would return directly home in the evening and not leave again until the next morning.

“Dr. Presman was hired and paid by the taxpayers to treat those who sacrifice so much for our country – our injured veterans,” Loretta Lynch, United States attorney general for the Eastern District, said in a statement. “As alleged, by defrauding the Medicare program, he betrayed the trust placed in him and stole from the very taxpayers who paid his salary. Far from honoring their sacrifice, Dr. Presman used our veterans as a cover for deceit and fraud.”

As part of the guilty plea, Presman agreed not to contest the forfeiture of his ill-gotten gains, amounting to over $1.2 million.

Presman will be sentenced on Feb. 13, 2014. At sentencing, he faces a maximum sentence of 10 years’ imprisonment, more than $1.2 million in mandatory restitution, and a fine of up to $2.4 million.