Latham Kicks Back Criminal Charges for Prominent Virginia Physician

A Latham White Collar criminal trial team recently won a complete dismissal of all charges against a prominent Virginia physician just a month before the start of a two-month federal criminal kickback trial in Los Angeles. In June 2021, the United States Attorney’s Office charged our client three other physicians, four executives, and a sales representative from a genetic testing firm with 21 counts including of conspiracy and paying or receiving Medicare-related kickbacks. The allegations in the indictment ultimately dismissed by the government stemmed from a clinical research program testing for opioid addiction risk. The indictment alleged that payments to physicians in connection with the testing program were illegal kickbacks fraudulently characterized as clinical research fees.

The Latham team, working closely with other defense counsel, uncovered considerable exculpatory evidence improperly withheld by the government, even after the government had represented that it had complied with its Constitutional obligations. The joint defense team also discovered that the government had reviewed attorney-client privileged materials and failed to disclose this to the defendants. On the day the prosecution was to respond to a barrage of pretrial defense briefs, it instead dismissed all charges against all six remaining defendants.

The result was a typical Latham multi-office effort by partners Jake Ryan and Steve Bauer, counsel Katherine Sawyer, and associate Rachel Suhr.