South Jersey man sentenced for role in health care fraud scheme

Matthew Fazelpoor//June 9, 2023//

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A Linwood man was sentenced this week for his role in a conspiracy to defraud to the state’s health benefits program out of more than $2 million.

Nicholas Tedesco, 49, who previously pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to commit health care fraud, was sentenced to 18 months in prison during a June 8 hearing in Camden federal court.

Several of the co-conspirators in the scheme, which operated by submitting fraudulent claims for medically unnecessary prescriptions, have also pleaded guilty, as reported by NJBIZ. Among those individuals to do so was Tedesco’s brother, Matthew, who pleaded guilty to his role back in 2017, and is scheduled to be sentenced in October.

“From January 2015 through April 2016, Nicholas Tedesco and others, working under conspiracy leader Matthew Tedesco, recruited individuals in New Jersey to obtain very expensive and medically unnecessary compounded medications from an out-of-state pharmacy, Central Rexall Drugs Inc. in Louisiana,” prosecutors said, according to documents and court statements in the case. “The conspirators knew that certain compound medication prescriptions – including pain, scar, antifungal, and libido creams, as well as vitamin combinations – were reimbursed for thousands of dollars for a one-month supply. The conspirators also knew that some New Jersey state and local government and education employees, including teachers, firefighters, municipal police officers, and state troopers, had insurance coverage for these particular medications.”

Prosecutors say that Tedesco recruited and paid several individuals to receive these unnecessary medications and to recruit others to receive them, including his co-defendant, Christopher Broccoli, who pleaded guilty last July to his role in the scheme, and is set to be sentenced next month.

In addition to the 18 months behind bars, U.S. District Judge Robert Kugler also sentenced Tedesco to three years of supervised release. As part of the plea agreement, he must forfeit $782,767 in criminal proceeds and pay restitution of $2.04 million.