Jury convicts former imaging center chain CEO in $250M MRI bribe scheme
The former chief executive of several California imaging centers has been convicted of running a $250 million MRI bribe scheme, the Department of Justice announced Friday, July 2.
A federal jury found Sam Solakyan, 40, guilty on one count of conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud and 11 more counts of honest-services mail fraud. He and colleagues reportedly ran their “cross-referral scheme” between 2013-2016, paying bribes and kickbacks to steer workers’ compensation patients toward their services.
The Glendale, California, man served as founder and CEO of Vital Imaging Inc. and the San Diego MRI Institute, operating centers in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, Orange County and San Diego. Beginning around mid-2013, Solakyan conspired with a chiropractor, patient-scheduling company MedEx and others, working with “corrupt doctors” to exchange cash for new patients.
Those involved hid their financial relationships by entering various “sham” agreements, the DOJ said, labeled as “marketing,” “administrative services,” or “scheduling.” However, Solakyan was actually paying volume-based, per-MRI scan bribes and kickbacks to induce docs to refer patients to the businessman’s companies. Two recruiters set quotas for physicians, collecting more than $8.6 million for obtaining such MRI referrals, according to evidence presented during the eight-day trial.
All told, Solakyan submitted or had some influence on more than $250 million in claims for medical services procured through bribes and kickbacks. Authorities first arrested the former CEO back in September 2018. Solana Beach-based chiropractor Steven Rigler pleaded guilty in 2015 to one count of conspiracy to commit honest-services mail fraud and was sentenced to six months in federal prison. Recruiters Fermin Iglesias, 41, of Glendale, and Carlos Arguello, 39, of Bonita, also previously pleaded guilty and received five-year and four-year sentences, respectively.
Solakyan founded private equity firm S3 Capital Inc. in 2015, according to his LinkedIn profile, with investments in more than a dozen companies. As CEO of venture capital firm Global Holdings Inc. before that, he oversaw “substantial growth,” including several major acquisitions under its portfolio. Those included Vital Imaging, once one of California’s largest MRI providers, according to a bio of the entrepreneur on IMDB.
District Judge Cynthia Bashant scheduled a sentence hearing for Oct. 4, with Solakyan facing a maximum sentence of 240 years in federal prison, the DOJ said.
Marty Stempniak has covered healthcare since 2012, with his byline appearing in the American Hospital Association's member magazine, Modern Healthcare and McKnight's. Prior to that, he wrote about village government and local business for his hometown newspaper in Oak Park, Illinois. He won a Peter Lisagor and Gold EXCEL awards in 2017 for his coverage of the opioid epidemic.