Fraud charges against cardiologist dismissed after 8-year legal battle
All charges have officially been dismissed against Richard Paulus, an interventional cardiologist found guilty of healthcare fraud back in 2016 and ultimately sentenced to five years in prison. This appears to be the end of an eight-year legal battle that included multiple jury trials and appeals.
Paulus, a longtime employee of King’s Daughter Medical Center (KDMC) in Ashland, Kentucky, was accused of performing unnecessary stent procedures and fraudulently billing Medicare, Medicaid and private insurance providers from 2008 to 2013. When he was first found guilty, one U.S. attorney described the verdict as a “milestone in an investigation spanning several years.” KDMC, meanwhile, supported their former employee throughout the investigation.
In 2019, Paulus was sentenced to five years in prison and ordered to pay approximately $1 million in restitution. However, in 2021, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Cincinnati ruled that a new trial was required, basing its decision in part on the discovery of new evidence. Now, nearly three years after that announcement, a federal judge has dismissed all charges against Paulus following yet another long trial that appeared to be stuck at a standstill.
The Daily Independent reported that one of the ongoing issues in this case was the ongoing uncertainty surrounding key pieces of evidence. In fact, the United States’ motion to dismiss specifically lists “the court’s exclusion of meaningful evidence” as one of the primary reasons the case should be dropped once and for all.
“Dr. Paulus was improperly accused by the government,” Hilary Holt LoCicero, the lead counsel for Paulus and a partner at the Washington, D.C.-based law firm BLL, said in a statement. “He dedicated his life to helping sick patients and he always acted in their best interests. There was substantial evidence at trial that established this. Essentially, the case boiled down to legitimate disagreements between experts in a complicated field of medicine.”
Michael has more than 18 years of experience as a professional writer and editor. He has written at length about cardiology, radiology, artificial intelligence and other key healthcare topics.