A Texas rheumatologist who turned his license to practice medicine into an $118 million scheme to finance his high-end lifestyle by falsely diagnosing perfectly healthy patients will be spending the next ten years in far less luxurious digs.
Sentenced to ten years in prison was Jorge Zamora-Quezada, 68, convicted of defrauding patients and government and private health insurers by diagnosing people with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), though they did not have the life-long, incurable condition.
A federal judge also ordered the disgraced physician to forfeit $28,245,454 in assets, which included his real estate portfolio of 13 properties, a jet plane, and a Maserati Grand Turismo.
Department of Justice’s Criminal Division’s Matthew R. Galeotti said in a DOJ statement after the sentencing this week:
Dr. Zamora-Quezada funded his luxurious lifestyle for two decades by traumatizing his patients, abusing his employees, lying to insurers, and stealing taxpayer money. His depraved conduct represents a profound betrayal of trust toward vulnerable patients who depend on care and integrity from their doctors.
The doctor ran the scheme out of his Mission, Texas, office with the help of staffers who were abused and threatened by his status and forced to cooperate, testimony revealed. Mission is a town just north of the Mexican border about 250 miles south of San Antonio.
The DOJ also described the doctor’s “treatment” protocols:
Zamora-Quezada administered unnecessary treatments and ordered unnecessary testing on them, including a variety of injections, infusions, x-rays, MRIs, and other procedures—all with potentially harmful and even deadly side effects. To receive payment for these expensive services, Zamora-Quezada fabricated medical records and lied about the patients’ condition to insurers.
Resulting side effects on his patients “included strokes, necrosis of the jawbone, hair loss, liver damage, and pain so severe that basic tasks of everyday life, such as bathing, cooking, and driving, became difficult.”
As one patient testified in the 25-day trial, “Constantly being in bed and being unable to get up from bed alone, and being pumped with medication, I didn’t feel like my life had any meaning.”
One mother described how she felt that her child served as a “lab rat,” and others described abandoning plans for college or feeling like they were “living a life in the body of an elderly person.”
Other physicians in the Rio Grande Valley testified against Zamora-Quezada, revealing healthy conditions when they treated hundreds of patients who were convinced they had RA.
The DOJ statement also included evidence photos of where the practice stored its medical files, showing a shed ravaged by rodents and termites with most documents covered in feces and urine.
The corrupt doctor had leverage to manipulate workers he hired from across the border, DOJ reported:
Zamora-Quezada referred to himself as the “eminencia” — or eminence, threw a paperweight at an employee who failed to generate enough unnecessary procedures, hired employees he could manipulate because they were on J-1 visas and their immigration status could be jeopardized if they lost their jobs, and fired those who challenged him. question his authority unless they risked being fired and deported.
If he was questioned on missing patients’ records, the doctor would order his staffers to make files “appear,” investigators said.
Zamora-Quezada was convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud, seven counts of healthcare fraud, and one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice.
Lowell Cauffiel is the best-selling author of Below the Line and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
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