A federal jury has found a District of Columbia insurance broker guilty for his role in a scheme to defraud CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield of more than $2 million.
Following a two-week trial, Tarek Abou-Katwa, a/k/a Dean Addem, a licensed insurance broker and the owner of Benefits Consulting Associates LLC, was found guilty of one count of health care fraud, three counts of making false statements related to health care matters, seven counts of mail fraud, six counts of wire fraud, and five counts of identity theft charged in a March 2018 indictment.
Abou-Khatwa is expected to be sentenced on March 3, 2020, by U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan of the District of Columbia, who presided over the trial.
According to the evidence presented at trial, Abou-Khatwa was involved in a scheme to defraud CareFirst BlueCross Blue Shield by creating fictitious employees and altering years of birth of actual employees to fraudulently obtain lower insurance premiums, inflate the rates charged to clients, and pocket the difference, which was in excess of $2 million.
Steven A. Meyerowitz
Steven A. Meyerowitz, a Harvard Law School graduate, is the founder and president of Meyerowitz Communications Inc., a law firm marketing communications consulting company. He may be contacted at [email protected].