Retired chiropractor tied to other doctors nabbed in state investigations
TRENTON -- A retired chiropractor in Passaic pleaded guilty Friday to bribery and money-laundering charges in a wide-ranging scheme that netted him $250,000, acting Attorney General Robert Lougy announced.
Alexander Dimeo, 61, with homes in Budd Lake and Fort Myers, Fla. and who operated Passaic Chiropractic & Therapy Center before he retirement in 2015, pleaded guilty before Superior Court Judge Michael A. Toto in Middlesex County.
Alexander Dimeo, a retired chiropractor who worked in Passaic, pleaded guilty Friday to steering patients to other doctors and medical providers in exchange for kickbacks. (Photo courtesy of the Attorney General's Office)Kevin Barry of Clifton, Dimeo's attorney, could not be reached for comment.
Authorities say the investigation into Dimeo stems from two earlier cases - one involving Manoj Patharkar and Mohammed Shamshair who were accused of laundering $3.6 million from the Patharkar's pain management clinics to evade taxes.
"Investigating these healthcare-related bribes is like peeling away the layers of a rotten onion: each new layer reveals more doctors and medical service providers who are profiting from these illicit schemes," Lougy said. "We must stop this corrupt conduct, which leads to improper diagnostic services and treatments and which ultimately results in higher medical and insurance costs for all of us."
Dimeo admitted that between 2009 and 2015, he received $254,500 for patient referrals, including $26,900 for patients he steered to Zuberi's MRI business, Medical & Molecular Imaging of Wayne, Lougy's announcement said. Dimeo also accepted $56,300 from Shamshair in exchange for referring patients to Patharkar's pain management clinics.
Dimeo also accepted $162,900 in kickbacks from another doctor and two other people with interests in medical practices or imaging centers who have yet to be publicly identified, Lougy said.
He is scheduled to be sentenced Aug, 22.
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The guilty pleas is the second case headed up by the Attorney General's five-month-old Commercial Bribery Task Force, targeting crimes in the healthcare industry. The task force is staffed by members of the Division of Criminal Justice Financial & Computer Crimes Bureau and the Office of the Insurance Fraud Prosecutor, which separately charged Dimeo.
"Our new commercial bribery task force will aggressively pursue every lead to identify crooked healthcare providers and those who assist them in these illegal kickback schemes," said Elie Honig, director of the Division of Criminal Justice. "We urge anyone with information about this type of bribery to contact us confidentially."
The Division of Criminal Justice has a toll-free tip line 1-866-TIPS-4CJ for the public to report corruption, financial crime and other illegal activities confidentially. The public also can make a report on to the Division webpage at www.njdcj.org.
Susan K. Livio may be reached at slivio@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @SusanKLivio. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.