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A New York attorney and surgeon were convicted by a Manhattan jury of six counts of fraud for participation in an illegal scheme that included false insurance claims and unnecessary surgeries for alleged injuries from staged trips and falls, a scheme prosecutors say resulted in more than $31 million in fake claims.
Following a three-week trial before U.S. District Judge Sidney H. Stein, the jury on December 16 unanimously convicted George Constantine, an attorney, and Andrew Dowd, an orthopedic surgeon, for their participation in the massive personal injury claims fraud scheme between 2013 and 2018.
A number of co-conspirators including other licensed professionals have already been convicted or pled guilty in the scheme.
The scheme involved the recruitment of individuals — including some who were homeless— to stage trip-and-fall accidents and undergo medically unnecessary surgeries performed by Dowd that were designed to increase the value of fraudulent personal injury lawsuits filed by Constantine, according to U.S. Attorney Damian Williams and prosecutors.
Williams said the men “preyed upon poor, vulnerable, and at-times homeless individuals” while abusing “their professional licenses, degrees, and titles to line their own pockets with millions of dollars, and they now face the prospect of lengthy prison sentences for their crimes.”
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