By City News Service
A Burbank man who allegedly evaded the payment of about $5.8 million in federal taxes over several years by using a shill to illegally collect Medicare reimbursement payments made to his blood-testing company was indicted today by a federal grand jury.
The man is charged in downtown Los Angeles with one count of tax evasion.
He has been in federal custody since his April 9 arrest at Los Angeles International Airport, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. He is a dual citizen of the United States and Armenia, was arrested prior to boarding a one-way flight whose ultimate destination was Armenia.
The man’s arraignment is scheduled for April 29 in L.A. federal court. According to court documents, he owned and operated a Burbank-based blood testing laboratory called Genex Laboratories Inc.
Medicare and bank records show that Medicare paid millions of dollars in reimbursements to Genex for blood testing. The reimbursements were wired to bank accounts in the name of an individual who is allegedly a longtime friend of the owner and to whom was offered $2,000 per month to pretend to be Genex’s owner.
For the tax years of 2015 through 2020, the man allegedly earned unreported income of about $16.2 million, resulting in a total federal income tax due and owing by him of nearly $5.8 million, according to court documents.
First published in the April 27 print issue of the Burbank Leader.
