The CEO of several Southern California-based medical imaging companies was sentenced to 60 months in federal prison for running a scheme that submitted more than $250 million in fraudulent claims through the California Workers’ Compensation System for medical services procured through bribes and kickbacks to physicians and others. Sam Sarkis Solakyan, 40, of Glendale, was also ordered to pay $27,937,175 in restitution to the victim insurers. He was banned from working in the healthcare and workers compensation industries for his three-year term of supervised release once he completes his prison sentence. From no later than mid-2013 to November 2016, Solakyan conspired with physicians and others to perpetrate a scheme in which physicians were paid bribes and kickbacks in exchange for the referral of workers’ compensation patients. 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 conspirators obscured the true nature of their financial relationships to conceal the bribes and kickbacks, including by entering into various sham agreements such as contracts for “marketing,” “administrative services,” and “scheduling,” when in fact the money Solakyan paid amounted to volume-based, per- magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan bribes and kickbacks to induce physicians to refer and continue referring patients to Solakyan’s companies.
