By Cathy Locke
clocke@sacbee.com

Three Sacramento-area residents are among 11 people, including five doctors, accused of participating in a Medicare fraud ring.

United States Attorney Benjamin B. Wagner announced that a federal grand jury last week returned a 20-count superseding indictment charging five doctors and six other people with conspiracy to commit health care fraud.

From February 2006 through August 2008, the defendants are alleged to have operated three health-care clinics - in Sacramento, Carmichael and Richmond - that submitted more than $5 million in allegedly fraudulent claims to Medicare.

The Sacramento clinic operated at 9121 Folsom Blvd. and the Carmichael clinic at 3609 Mission Ave., according to the complaint.

Included in the superseding indictment are Zoya Belov, 35, of Carmichael; Nazaret Salmanyan, 27, or Citrus Heights; and Liw Jiaw Saechao, 44, of Sacramento. Belov and Salmanyan were members of the medical staffs at the clinics, and Saechao recruited patients for the clinics, said Lauren Horwood, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Others named in the superseding indictment are Dr. Alexander Popov, 44, of Los Angeles; Dr. Ramanathan Prakash, 63, of Northridge; Dr. Emilio Cruz III, 57, of Los Angeles; Dr. Lana Le Chabrier, 62, of Santa Barbara; Dr. Sol Teitelbaum, 82, of Los Angeles; Migran Petrosyan, 39, of Burbank; Khachatur Arutunyan, 51 of Tujunga; and Shushanik Martirosyan, 43, of Glendale.

Vardges Egiazarian, 60, of Panorama City, the alleged leader of the conspiracy, was named in the original indictment that focused on the activities of the Richmond clinic, according to a federal Department of Justice news release.

The original indictment also charged Le Chabrier, Petrosyan and Arutunyan, as well as Dr. Derrick Johnson with health-care fraud, according to the release.

Egiazarian entered a guilty plea in August 2009, admitting that fraudulent claims were submitted to Medicare at each of the three clinics, according to the release.

Egiazarian admitted that patients were recruited and transported to the clinic by individuals who were paid according to the number of patients they brought to the facility, according to the release. Rather than being charged a co-payment, the patients generally were paid $100 per visit for their time and the use of their Medicare eligibility.

Some of the patients for whom billings were submitted at the Richmond clinic were deceased on the date they allegedly received services, according to the release.

Egiazarian was sentenced in November 2009 to 6-1/2 years in prison and ordered to pay more than $1.5 million in restitution to Medicare, the release states.

On Sept. 9, 2009, Derrick Johnson entered a guilty plea to the original indictment, according to the release. He admitted that hundreds of the Medicare claims for services he allegedly performed at the Richmond clinic were submitted on his behalf, although he had never set foot in the facility or had any contact with the purported patients. Johnson has yet to be sentenced.

The superseding indictment, returned Thursday, adds a conspiracy charge and allegations relating to the Richmond clinic, and adds the Sacramento and Carmichael clinics. It charges that Drs. Popov, Prakash, Le Chabrier and Cruz each submitted applications to Medicare seeking approval to submit claims for medical services allegedly rendered at the clinics.

Despite approval of the applications and submission of more than $5 million worth of claims to Medicare, none of the doctors provided service or treatment at the clinics, according to the superseding indictment. It also alleges that clinic patients seldom received the services purportedly rendered in the claims. Instead, Medicare-eligible patients were typically given cursory examinations and paid $100 each for their trouble, the release states.

The indictment alleges that the money paid by Medicare on the claims was distributed among members of the conspiracy.

Call The Bee's Cathy Locke, (916) 321-5287.