I recently received this email from a client about his journey through the federal justice system. He is a physician who is planning on going to a trial to defend himself.
As you can see from his words below, he acknowledges the importance of early preparation and planning with not only his attorney but with our team.
The value of preparation; it is never too early to prepare, to mitigate, and plan for the next step.
By: M.A.R., MD,
I cannot emphasize strongly enough the worth of early preparation and groundwork for individuals who are traversing this treacherous and unfair legal system. We criminal defendants should create the underpinning and the foundation for as soft a landing as possible when we are met with challenges as targets of the legal system in this country.
I cannot thank you enough for the valuable help that you have provided me so far as I travel and this trip through the system. The advice and your postings and videos have instilled a great amount of hope, determination, and perseverance in trying to navigate the legal system and create and prepare for the best possible outcome.
By background I am a psychiatrist and an internal Medicine Doctor who has been in practice for almost 25 years. As a leader in the field of psychiatry and addiction medicine I was involved with telehealth and telemedicine before they were popular (COVID times) from the years 2015 to the year 2019. It is my belief as well as those of my lawyers that we did everything up to the laws and regulations as they were at that time, the government did not have a lot of guidance or rules for telehealth at that time and we did our best in a murky and unclear situation. I learned in June 2019 that I was embroiled in a government investigation based on the complaint of a disgruntled employee who fabricated facts.
I began my preparation and mediation during those times, hiring attorneys to help. Mitigating any negative facts and information that were provided by this disgruntled employee. My greatest opportunity at redemption and mitigation came when COVID happened. As a physician who worked for NIH and was previously in the United States Public Health Service, I volunteered myself in my practice to help with COVID vaccinations. Between January 2021 and May 2021, we gave (Administered) 4000 shots of COVID vaccines to our patients and members of the community’s surrounding my practice including at Mosques, churches, synagogues and Indian Sikh temples. I provided those services for free to the community and to the government (Almost a Million Dollars’ worth of services). This early preparation will prove valuable in mitigating the outcome of my case as it travels through the legal system. I will have an army of character witnesses and letters from the community attesting to how I stepped up to help my community in a time of crisis and did not charge anything.
Despite my early legal representation effort, the investigation continued from June 2019 to December 2021. The government, having not found enough facts to merit any charges, came again knocking on the door and threatening with more charges, jail time and awful consequences to upend my life and my practice of medicine. I received a target letter in December 2021 which is when I retained your services, and I began following your advice.
Your advice filled me with the hope that a positive outcome is always possible. Through your hopeful videos and advice as well as Larry’s preparation for a narrative and the free advice of the attorney you refered me to, I hired a very successful Federal criminal defense attorney who was a part of the federal public defender’s office but in private practice and who has not been a assistant US attorney in the past. He had fought and won many battles with the Federal Government (My Lawyers up to that stage were civil defense attorneys). My lawyer Mr. Hetznecker tells me that the narrative that was prepared by your firm, which he reviewed very early on within a month of me receiving my target letter was very helpful for him and very instrumental in him understanding my background and strategies to mitigate. I had heard also that people prepare an allocution statement, and I prepared a statement that recounts what I believe were the issues that the government was investigating and how I believe that I have done nothing wrong (truthfully). I also identified things that went wrong (errors) and how the Government can transform unavoidable errors into a crime.
In the times of COVID in February 2022 we had a reverse proffer meeting with the government by telephone. I learned of the many charges including healthcare fraud, controlled substances violations and the loss amount in the 3-4 million range. The message that I got was that I was not special and that I should plan on spending a very long time in jail. And while unheard of, I pushed my attorney to begin preparation and mediation even in that early stage. I was told unequivocally that once the DOJ issues a target letter, they always end up charging the person. I believe that I had not done anything criminal and that we should begin our defense as early as possible.
I live in Pennsylvania which is the third US district, and the Eastern Pennsylvania US attorney’s office was prosecuting this case. In September 2022 the US attorney’s office and the FBI had a significant public humiliation when they raided the home of a pastor who was protesting at an abortion clinic to arrest him for a scuffle that had happened in front of the abortion clinic (He was tried and found not guilty). The scene and press created by this incident changed the operating procedure for that US attorney’s office.
In November 2022 I received a notice several days beforehand that there was going to be an indictment and that I will be allowed to turn myself in to the courthouse for the arraignment. I later learned that the indictment only had 4 charges of healthcare fraud and with an intended loss amount of $1 million. I was allowed to surrender to the court, was never handcuffed and was released on my own recognizance without bail, I witnessed firsthand how well respected and prepared my attorney was to handle the prosecuting US attorney and the US magistrate. In December 2022 a significant case in the third district (There are other cases in other circuits, but this may affect many healthcare fraud cases loss calculations) was decided; United States v. Banks and set the stage for only the actual loss in fraud cases to be the factor in calculation of points for the sentencing guidelines. I learned that in my case the actual loss was around 250,000. I learned that even if God forbids, I was found guilty at trial a Judge had sentenced another client of yours in March 2023, a physician defendant with similar loss amount and facts to one day in jail and a year of supervised release. hope, preparation, and mitigation.
I am working with my attorney as you and I go through preparation for the trial, knowing exactly what is at stake, the loss amount, the points, the sentencing guidelines, narrative, PSR, sentencing memo even choose a correctional facility if God forbids, I was found guilty. Please share this with your members. They should prepare early mitigate, be ready don’t lose hope. Laws are changing, new precedents cases are coming. I love your You Tube videos as they have been very helpful.
Nothing in this letter is not public Knowledge or info that is not contained in the indictment. Please feel free to share this to inspire fellow humans who are traveling this unfair criminal justice System.
-Dr. M.A.R.