Former State Department Employee + Spouse Sentenced in Medical Insurance Fraud Case

ALEXANDRIA, VA -- Russell J. Sveda, 70, and Richard V. Schachter, 56, of Alexandria, were each sentenced last week to 15 months incarceration for their scheme to steal from the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, federal officials announced.

Both Sveda and Schachter pled guilty in October to health care fraud in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. They were sentenced Thursday to 15 months in prison and 36 months of supervised release. They must jointly pay $257,000, the FBI said in a news release.

Officials say that Sveda, a former U.S. State Department employee, now retired, and Schachter, his spouse, submitted false medical insurance claims from German hospitals and pharmacies.

Between February 2007 and October 2010, Sveda and Schachter submitted to the insurance carrier for the Foreign Service Benefit Plan claims for pharmaceutical items and services purportedly obtained from a German pharmacy, Stadt-Apotheke Fussen, located in Fussen, Germany. Similarly, from May 2007 through October 2012, Sveda and Schachter submitted claims for medical services Sveda allegedly obtained from various German doctors, clinics, and hospitals. Sveda’s claims used the names and addresses of various doctors, clinics, hospitals, and pharmacies, and other health care service providers, located in Germany.

Since at least 2007, Sveda and Schachter have engaged in extensive foreign travel and extended stays at spas, the FBI said. Government travel records — such as passport stamps and U.S. government’s records of border crossings — as well as documents obtained from airlines, ocean line operators, credit and debit card payments, and a major spa company, establish that Sveda was traveling across the Atlantic, receiving spa treatments in Massachusetts, or otherwise traveling outside of Germany on the dates when Sveda and Schachter claimed Sveda was in Germany receiving medical services from doctors, clinics, hospitals, or other health care providers, according to the FBI.

Based on information the government has received to date, $257,000 of those claimed medical services, purportedly performed in Germany, are known to be false given the dates when travel and other records establish that Sveda was not in Germany.