N.J. medical bribe scheme reached grand scale

Selections from the extensive report on NewJersey.com

The first hint of the vast bribery scheme came with the arrests of a North Jersey doctor and three businessmen who, authorities said, found a way to turn a diagnostic lab with offices in Parsippany and Garfield into a virtual gold mine.

Two years later, federal prosecutors in Newark have racked up convictions of 38 people, including 25 doctors from New Jersey, New York and Connecticut, in what is believed to be one of the largest — if not the largest — laboratory bribery prosecutions in the United States, both in terms of money and the number of physicians caught with their hands out.

“To our knowledge, this is the largest number of medical professionals ever prosecuted in the same case,” U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman said last week.

“It shows how pervasive this practice can be. It has also made people in the profession sit up and take notice and made the deterrent message that much louder,” he said.

In recent weeks two doctors, one weeping and both remorseful, have been sentenced after helping prosecutors catch others in cases that add to the broadening panorama of corruption.

By the numbers

• 25 doctors and one physician’s assistant pleaded guilty to accepting bribes.
• 16 of the doctors live in New Jersey; seven in New York; and two in Connecticut. The physician’s assistant is also from New Jersey.
• 12 other defendants who worked at Biodiagnostic Laboratory Services have pleaded guilty.
• The amount of bribes pocketed by individual doctors ranged from $10,500 to $1.8 million.
• In return for bribes, the doctors referred over $100 million in blood tests to the lab.
• So far, 12 doctors have been sentenced to terms ranging from one year of probation, for a cooperator, to more than three years in federal prison and fines of up to $75,000.

The government is seeking a combined forfeiture of more than $87 million from the 38 defendants, including $50 million from former BLS owner and president David Nicoll and $25 million from his brother, Scott Nicoll.

And it’s not over. Additional arrests of doctors who profited from the scheme are anticipated, prosecutors say.

Here is the section we are interested in from this extensive report on this large and complex scheme

A psychiatrist from Fort Lee, who practiced in Paterson, and a doctor from Ramsey are among 12 physicians who have already been sentenced. The psychiatrist, Claudio Dicovsky, admitted accepting $220,000 from BLS, but put a halt to the payments long before the feds came knocking. In January, he was placed on probation for three years, including one year of house arrest with electronic monitoring, and ordered to perform 1,500 hours of community service.