United States Attorney Jason R. Dunn announced that Dr. John Van Wu, age 50, was sentenced to serve 51 months (4 years and 3 months) in federal prison for mail fraud and obstruction of justice charges as well as distributing oxycodone outside the usual course of medical practice. Following the prison sentence, Wu will serve 3 years on supervised release. Wu was also ordered to pay restitution of $94,829.38. According to documents and testimony presented at trial, Wu operated a medical clinic at locations in west Denver between January 2011 and March 2015. During that time period the defendant devised a scheme in which he billed employee benefit programs and insurers for services that were never actually rendered nor medically necessary. During the trial over a dozen of the doctor’s former patients testified that they did not have many of the ailments described in their medical files and did not get the expensive procedures billed to insurance. For example, patient files described days-long nosebleeds followed by nasal cauterization procedures, but patients testified that neither happened. Other files described diagnoses related to migraine headaches and frequent administrations of injections to treat those agents. Patients testified that those, too, did not occur. Testimony at trial also established that the defendant billed approximately 95% of his office visits as the longest, most expensive, and highest-reimbursing type of office visit, despite the fact that his patients had relatively simple and routine ailments that did not need that level of service.
