CHICAGO — A suburban Chicago physician prescribed opioids to patients without a medical examination or visit and then fraudulently billed Medicare for the nonexistent treatment, according to a criminal charge filed in federal court.
ELIZA DIACONESCU, 73, of Lake Forest, Ill., is charged with one count of health care fraud. The charge is punishable by a maximum sentence of ten years in federal prison. Arraignment is scheduled for July 18, 2022, at 11:00 a.m., before U.S. Magistrate Judge Maria Valdez.
The charge was announced by John R. Lausch, Jr., United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois; Robert J. Bell, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Division of the DEA; Mario Pinto, Special Agent-in-Charge of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General; Irene Lindow, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Division of the U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Inspector General; and Emmerson Buie, Jr., Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Field Office of the FBI. The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jared Hasten, Charles W. Mulaney, and Ernest Y. Ling.
The charge was brought by the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s Opioid Task Force, which was formed in 2019 for the purpose of combatting the growing number of unlawful distributions of controlled substances fueling the nation’s opioid crisis.
A criminal information filed Thursday in federal court alleges that from 2016 to 2021, Diaconescu pre-signed blank...
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