After a five-week trial, Goodwin client Sam Halper, the Chief Executive Officer of Comprehensive Healthcare Management Service, LLC (“CHMS”), was acquitted by a unanimous jury in Pittsburgh, PA. Mr. Halper, whose company owns and operates nursing homes in Western Pennsylvania and elsewhere, had been charged by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Western District of Pennsylvania with healthcare fraud, conspiring to defraud the United States, and submitting falsified documents in connection with the delivery of healthcare benefits, all in connection with what the U.S. Department of Justice contended was a wide-ranging and long-running illegal scheme to cheat the government and maximize profits at the expense of resident care. In addition, Mr. Halper’s four individual co-defendants – nurses and a social worker who worked in executive administrative roles at CHMS and two nursing home facilities in the Pittsburgh area were also acquitted of all charges.
In August 2022, Mr. Halper was charged by DOJ in two criminal schemes. The first alleged that he and others submitted and conspired to submit falsified staffing records concerning the number of staff and the number of hours staff provided nursing care in order to show that the nursing homes had sufficient staff to receive Medicare and Medicaid payments. The second alleged that Mr. Halper conspired to falsify resident records to make their health seem worse than it was to increase certain treatment needs in order to receive inflated Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements. The DOJ alleged that Mr. Halper was responsible for millions of dollars in losses, and he faced years of incarceration if he had been convicted. Following a hard-fought trial which began on November 14th and concluded on December 18th, the jury acquitted Mr. Halper on all charges.
Goodwin’s defense of Sam Halper was spearheaded by Kirk Ogrosky, James Gatta and Tierney Smith, and Jenna Welsh, Owen Marks, Jordan Wenik and former associate Ilana Malkin, with invaluable assistance from Gail Rosner and Alpha Pearce.
The team was recognized in American Lawyer’s Litigators of Week Runners-Up for 2023.
For more details, see coverage in Law360.