Matthew Taylor Witkowski, 37, an American citizen who has been residing in the Dominican Republic, and is currently on bail in Florida, pleaded guilty to a one-count criminal Information charging him with conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud. From at least August 2019 through the date of his arrest in July 2022, Witkowski and a co-conspirator (“CC-1”) engaged in a scheme to defraud Medicare by illegally obtaining and selling fraudulent written orders for goods and services paid for by Medicare, including for durable medical equipment (“DME”).
Using a call center that he owned and operated in the Dominican Republic, Witkowski illegally generated and purchased fraudulent written orders for DME and then sold those fraudulent orders to pharmacies and DME suppliers, including in New York City. Those pharmacies and DME suppliers then used those fraudulent orders as the basis for more than $8 million in fraudulent claims to Medicare. Many of these fraudulent orders used names and personal health information of actual Medicare beneficiaries, without the beneficiaries’ authorization or prior knowledge. Many of these fraudulent orders also contained professional information of doctors and other healthcare providers enrolled in the Medicare program, as well as the purported electronic signatures of these providers, which were falsified and created without the authorization or knowledge of these providers.
During the course of the scheme, Witkowski took more than $4 million in illegal kickbacks from DME suppliers, who made these payments to True Prospects Marketing, Inc., a company controlled by Witkowski and CC-1, and to Sales Drive Marketing LLC, a company owned and controlled by Witkowski.
