A doctor from New York did unnecessary operations to patients for the sake of insurance: the scam brought him and his accomplices $ 31 million

A New York doctor performed unnecessary surgeries on poor patients in a $31 million insurance and lawsuit fraud scheme. He pleaded guilty on September 29 to federal fraud charges. Daily News.

Sadie Ribeiro, 72, faces a maximum five-year prison sentence. He is charged with fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud, the Manhattan prosecutor's office said.

Ribeiro agreed to compensate the government for $513 in criminal proceeds. In addition, he is ready to pay $000 million in compensation to victims, including businesses and insurance companies.

Some of Ribeiro's 400 patients went broke enough to beg for food when they showed up (as the feds' indictment says).

“Many patients did not have warm clothes to keep warm in winter, they had poor quality shoes,” the indictment says. A lot of people were drug addicts, they were recruited from homeless shelters.

Ribeiro denies federal prosecutors' claim that the treatment was a "surgical intervention"

“The procedures were minimally invasive and took between 5 and 10 minutes,” lawyer Kenneth Abell assured him. “According to Dr. Ribeiro, they posed zero risk to humans. And, to the best of his knowledge, no one suffered side effects.”

The lawyer said that Ribeiro is "a good doctor and a man who has spent years helping patients." State records show he still has a medical license.

On the subject: A well-known New York doctor was accused of harassing patients: he hanged himself in prison

Ribeiro's patients were referred to him by a group of lawyers and others involved in the scheme, who asked the patients to pretend that they had suffered accidents. The feds claim the scheme ran from 2013 to 2018.

The alleged accidents were cited in lawsuits and insurance claims that brought money to lawyers, doctors and a firm run by another defendant, Adrian Alexander. This firm provided the money to fund the scheme.

Patients received little in return for receiving unnecessary treatment. Many of them were offered personal loans at 100% per annum. Or loans to cover their medical expenses at 50% per annum. The stakes are so high that the scheme's operators have received almost all of the proceeds from lawsuits.

Alexander, 77, pleaded guilty to the scheme in August. He faces up to five years in prison.