Yuriy Barayev, the owner of Woodhaven Rx, was found guilty of health care fraud and money laundering on Feb. 26, 2020. (Photo Courtesy of U.S. Attorney Richard Donoghue)
Feb. 28, 2020 By Michael Dorgan
A Rego Park pharmacy owner has been convicted for his role in a health care fraud and money laundering scheme.
Yuriy Barayev, 45, was found guilty by a federal jury in Brooklyn Wednesday of defrauding Medicare by submitting claims for hundreds of medications that were never dispensed through his pharmacy, Woodhaven Rx, located at 62-04B Woodhaven Blvd.
Barayev laundered proceeds of the scheme through a shell company owned by his wife and spent the money on himself, his family and friends, according to U.S. Eastern District Attorney Richard P. Donoghue.
Barayev now faces up to 150 years in prison for his crimes that were committed from November 2013 to December 2015.
He was found guilty on one count of health care fraud which carries up to 10 years in prison and guilty on seven counts of money laundering – each money laundering count carries up to 20 years in prison.
The prosecution was part of a nationwide health care fraud takedown led by the Medicare Fraud Strike Force that has charged over 3,800 defendants with billing Medicare for around $15 billion, according to Donoghue.
Nearly 2,500 defendants have been given prison sentences for an average term of 50 months since its inception in 2007, he stated.
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4 Comments
Maybe if we support the locally owned stores instead of the chains this might not happen as much … if we don’t support locally owned merchants all there will be are empty stores surrounding the non locally owned chains … wake up
I did not spend my entire life working hard at school, and now with my children, to afford living in Forest Hills, only to pay for other people’s children to enjoy my lifelong dedication to hard work and education! They chose to hang around the streets, skip school, and do drugs, while they were young. (If)They live in Jamaica, they should go to school in their own neighborhood. If they want to attend school in Forest Hills and share these resources with our kids, they need to work hard for it, like us. Not just sit on their asses and cry about inequality.
Good and they should investigate all the other mom and pop pharmacies we have around town. There’s no way that we need this many in addition to 2 Walgreens, 2 CVS, Duane Reade, Rite Aid and a CVS express inside Target. I never see anyone in the little pharmacies, and with the astronomical rents, there is no way they are just surviving on walk in business. Please investigate them!
How about investigating all these chain pharmacies for fixing prices? That’d be a challenge. Easy to pick on little guys.