West Orange Man Sentenced to 16 Months For Role in Medical Lab Bribe Scheme

A West Orange physician with his own practice in Montclair was sentenced Thursday to 16 months in prison for his role in a long-running bribery scheme orchestrated by a Parsippany medical laboratory, United States Attorney Paul Fishman announced.

Charles Goldberg, 61, who pleaded guilty to taking bribes from Biodiagnostic Laboratory Services LLC in Parsippany, was sentenced in federal court and ordered to pay a $50,000 fine as well as forfeit $58,000, which represents the amount in bribery he received, Fishman said.

Goldberg accepted bribes of $1,800 per month through a “sham” lease agreement, Fishman said, which identified the waiting room, bathroom, and one exam room in Goldberg’s office as being leased to Biodiagnostic Laboratory Services.

Goldberg pleaded guilty to one count of accepting bribes, and he’ll also be under court-ordered supervision for one year after his release from prison.

The West Orange man was one of 34 people who pleaded guilty on the wide-ranging scheme, 23 of them physicians. As a result of the operation, the Parsippany business received more than $100 million in payments from Medicare and other private insurance companies.