Operator Of North Jersey Ambulance Company Gets 18 Years For Health Care Fraud

The operator of a North Jersey ambulance company was sentenced to 18 years in prison and must pay restitution of $8.8 million after he was found guilty of receiving more than $10 million for service he provided to federally-enrolled patients despite being barred from participating in federal healthcare programs.

Imadeldin Awad Khair, aka "Nadr Awad," 57, was convicted on 17 counts of fraud, tax evasion and money laundering. He was convicted in August following a nine-day trial in Newark federal court.

U.S. District Judge Susan D. Wigenton imposed the sentence on Khair Monday.

Khair was prohibited from participating in federal healthcare programs after he was found guilty in 2004 of state health care fraud.

After he was barred, Khair started operating a business named K&S Invalid Coach in his brother's name. Medicare and Medicaid paid more than $9 million in claims the business submitted, none of which would have been paid had officials known that Khair was operating the business, said U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman.

Khair had a business associate tell authorities that he was a full-time employee so that Khair could continue running the business and provided fake pay stubs to convince authorities that he was not violating the ban.

Authorities became aware Khair was running K&S while executing a search warrant at the business.

Khair also tried to influence a government witness outside of the courtroom by claiming that he had more than two dozen employees who were going to testify that his brother had really been in charge of K&S, Fishman said.

Khair also had all of K&S's employees' overtime wages "off the books," and did not pay taxes on them. He directed employees to send only the fraudulent set of books to the company's payroll accountant. He kept the overtime numbers on a separate set of books, Fishman said.

Khair also told employees to lie to the Department of Labor, telling them that they worked no more than 80 hours every two weeks and had them falsify timekeeping records to make the fake amounts reported to the payroll accountant, Fishman said.

Wigeton also sentenced Khair to three years of supervised release.

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