A federal court sentenced a pharmacy owner and his technician to prison for orchestrating a massive health care fraud scheme that involved falsified audit documents, fabricated prescription records, and bribing doctors.
Kirtan S. Patel (34), a permanent US resident originally from India who owned a pharmacy in Jersey City, was sentenced to 30 months in prison. His technician, Christopher Lugo (36), received a 24-month prison sentence. Together, their separate fraudulent activities cost health insurance companies and Medicare well over $1.1 million.
The scheme unraveled after federal investigators uncovered text messages in which Patel casually bragged about his operations to a friend. In the texts, Patel described how he billed around $8,000 to $10,000 every month to his own insurance company despite not taking any medications, calling it “basically free money.” He also explicitly detailed how he plied local doctors with cash, night clubs, and trips to strip clubs to keep them “as corrupt as possible” so they would keep writing fake prescriptions.
When an insurance provider launched a routine audit in November 2020, Patel attempted a cover-up by submitting falsified documents. These papers falsely claimed that medical providers had authorized specific refills and that customers had physically picked up prescriptions that they never actually requested or received.
Meanwhile, his technician, Christopher Lugo, ran a parallel fraud. In January 2020, Lugo submitted fraudulent claims to his own health insurer for high-value drugs that were never prescribed to him or dispensed. Lugo’s individual fraudulent billing alone cost insurers and Medicare over $565,000.
In addition to their prison time, both men face massive financial penalties. Patel has been ordered to pay $620,000 in restitution along with an additional $620,000 in forfeiture, while Lugo must pay back over $565,000.
