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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

Former Glendale CEO Found Guilty of $250 Million Workers’ Comp Fraud

The chief executive of a Glendale medical imaging company was found guilty Friday of fraudulently submitting claims worth more than $250 million through the state workers’ compensation system.Sam Sarkis Solakyan was chief executive of Vital Imaging Inc. in Glendale and other imaging centers in California. According to prosecutors, he conspired with the head of a patient scheduling service to set up a scheme where doctors were paid bribes and kickbacks for referrals of workers’ comp patients for magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI scans.The compensation offered to the corrupt doctors consisted of either cash or referrals of new patients in what is known as a “cross-referral” scheme. The scheme was perpetrated from no later than mid-2013 to November 2016, according to trial evidence.Solakyan had recruiters require physicians to meet a patient referral quota, according to the evidence. Two recruiters, Fermin Iglesias of Glendale and Carlos Arguello of Bonita, were paid more than $8.6 million for obtaining MRI referrals. The payments were concealed from patients and health insurers.Solakyan was found guilty of one count of conspiracy to commit honest services mail fraud and health care fraud, as well as 11 counts of honest services mail fraud.A sentencing hearing in U.S. District Court for Solakyan has been scheduled for Oct. 4. He will face a statutory maximum sentence of 240 years in federal prison.

Antonio Pequeño IV
Antonio Pequeño IV
Antonio “Tony” Pequeño IV is a reporter covering health care, finance and law for the San Fernando Valley Business Journal. He specializes in reporting on some of the biggest names in the Valley’s biotechnology sector. In addition to his work with the Business Journal, Tony has reported with BuzzFeed News on the unsupervised use of Clearview AI, a controversial facial recognition technology. Tony, who also conducts freelance reporting, graduated from the USC’s Master of Science in Journalism program in 2021. He is in his fifth year as a journalist as of 2021.

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