A Texas doctor seized on teens, elderly patients, and non-English speakers to defraud them in a sprawling $325m case. DOJ officials said it’s one of the most egregious of its kind
A Texas-based doctor was sentenced Wednesday to 10 years in prison for healthcare fraud after he carried out what prosecutors said was a nearly two-decade scheme that involved falsely diagnosing thousands of patients with degenerative diseases and profiting handsomely off their treatments.
Jorge Zamora-Quezada, a rheumatologist licensed to practice medicine in Texas, Arizona and Massachusetts before being stripped of his licenses in each state, raked in hundreds of millions of dollars for the misdiagnoses and treatment he ordered during his roughly 20 years as a medical practitioner. The treatments included punishing rounds of chemotherapy, intravenous infusions, and a battery of other tests, monthly visits, and regular procedures associated with the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, a chronic, autoimmune condition for which there is no cure.
The sentencing, and his earlier court appearances, played out at times like a study in contrasts. Prosecutors detailed his extravagant lifestyle, including a private jet, 13 properties across the U.S., including in Aspen and various towns in Mexico, and a Maserati – while the health of the patients he defrauded continued to worsen.