Former casino employee gets probation for committing insurance fraud

Saturday, Sept. 16, 2000 | 11:30 a.m.

Joan Heubsch, 47, of Las Vegas is the only MGM employee prosecutors have charged in the case, but FBI spokesman Joseph Dickey said agents are investigating several other workers at MGM and other Las Vegas resorts.

Heubsch pleaded guilty in May to conspiracy to commit health insurance fraud, a felony.

"I plan on being more careful with my choices in the future," the defendant told U.S. District Judge Roger Hunt at her sentencing hearing Friday.

Hunt ordered the defendant to pay about $7,000 in restitution.

Authorities said Heubsch paid a total of about $3,000 to two "patient brokers," Sophia Dao Stack and an unidentified MGM employee, to arrange for cosmetic surgery at the Moreno Valley Ambulatory Surgical Center in California.

Lee Newman, the Beverly Hills, Calif., doctor who performed some of the surgeries, is accused of submitting bills to Mutual of Omaha stating that the cosmetic surgeries were medically necessary procedures.

He pleaded guilty in early April to conspiracy to commit health insurance fraud and obstruction of a health insurance fraud investigation.

Newman, 60, did not operate on Heubsch, Dickey said.

Authorities said Mutual of Omaha paid about $21,500 to Newman as a result of fraudulent claims he filed between February 1996 and March 1998.

Stack, 51, of Anaheim, Calif., also pleaded guilty in May to conspiracy to commit health insurance fraud. Prosecutors accuse her of receiving kickbacks of $500 for each patient she referred to the surgery center.

Stack and the other unidentified patient broker are accused of referring about nine MGM employees to the surgical center in exchange for kickbacks and referral fees totaling about $20,000.

Hunt sentenced Stack on Friday to four months of home confinement with electronic monitoring and three years of probation.

The judge also ordered her to pay $60,000 in restitution, as well as the costs of electronic monitoring.

Suzi Alter, the 44-year-old owner and operator of the surgical center, pleaded guilty in May to obstruction of a health insurance fraud investigation.

Authorities claim Newman and Alter told patients to mislead the FBI about the investigation. Hunt is scheduled to sentence Newman next month and Alter in December.