Long Island Doctor, 2 Lawyers Sentenced In Trip And Fall Insurance Scam: Feds

NEW YORK, NY — A doctor and two attorneys from Long Island were sentenced Tuesday to three years of supervised release for their parts in a New York City-based trip and fall insurance fraud scam in which vulnerable patients, including the homeless, were treated with unnecessary orthopedic surgeries, the U.S. Attorney's office said.

Attorney George Constantine, 60, of Plainview, was also ordered to pay $4,774,709 in forfeiture, and Marc Elefant, 50, of Woodmere, $955,281.54. Dr. Andrew Dowd, 67, of Miller Place, was ordered to pay $2,900,905 in forfeiture. Restitution will be decided by the court within 90 days of their sentences.

Constantine and Dowd were convicted at trial in December 2022 of mail fraud, wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud. Elefant was convicted in May 2019.

Patients were recruited from homeless shelters and often suffered from drug and alcohol addiction as well, and they agreed to surgeries in exchange for the small payments they would receive afterward, according to prosecutors.

It was common for the patients to ask for food or money when they would appear for their intake meetings with Constantine, and many of the patients did not have proper clothing or shoes to keep them warm in the winter, prosecutors said.

Between 2013 and 2018, the trio, among others, took part in a staged trip-and-fall scheme in which fraudulent were filed with Constantine and Elefant as the personal injury lawyers and Dowd as the orthopedic surgeon, according to prosecutors.

Other participants in the scheme recruited people — often the extremely poor — to stage or falsely claim to have suffered trip-and-fall accidents at particular locations throughout the New York City area, prosecutors said.

In the beginning, the scheme participants would instruct patients to claim they had tripped and fallen at a particular location, when they didn't, and eventually, at the direction of the lawyers, scheme participants began to instruct patients to stage trip-and-fall accidents, according to prosecutors.

Common accident sites used included cellar doors, cracks in concrete sidewalks, and purported “potholes,” prosecutors said.

After the staged accidents, patients were referred to Constantine and Elefant, who would file the lawsuits, but not mention that they were staged or, in some cases, that there was no accident at all, according to prosecutors.

During the scheme, the lawyers tried to defraud the victims of over $31,000,000, with Constantine filing nearly 200 fraudulent lawsuits, earning over $5 million in settlement fees, and Elefant, 200 lawsuits, earning millions of dollars in settlement fees, prosecutors said.

Patients were also instructed to receive ongoing chiropractic and medical treatment from certain chiropractors and doctors, including Dowd, and fraud scheme participants advised them that if they intended to continue with their lawsuits, they were required to undergo surgery, which was "critical to boosting the value of any potential settlement," according to prosecutors.

Patients generally were told to undergo two surgeries, prosecutors said.

Fraud scheme participants looked for doctors, like Dowd, who were willing to perform surgeries, even when others would not, and during the scheme, he performed nearly 300 medically unnecessary surgeries, earning over $3.2 million, according to prosecutors.

U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said the trio "abused their professional licenses and degrees and exploited some of the most vulnerable members of society – many of whom were poor, drug addicts, or homeless — in order to enrich themselves through this egregious trip-and-fall fraud scheme."

"As officers of the court, Constantine and Elefant had a duty to honestly represent their clients and uphold the rule of law," Williams said. "Instead, they filed hundreds of fraudulent lawsuits that were filled with lies and stole millions of dollars from small businesses and insurance companies.

Likewise, Dowd, as a medical doctor, took an oath to do no harm. But motivated by pure greed, Dowd performed hundreds of medically unnecessary surgeries, earning thousands of dollars per surgery. These sentences send a clear message to all who chose to engage in fraud — no matter their professional title or degree — that they will be held accountable.”

Patch has reached out to the U.S. Attorney's office for the names of Constantine, Dowd, and Elefant's attorneys.