Texas doctor gave fake diagnoses — and toxic drugs — in $325 million scam, feds say
A federal jury convicted a southern Texas doctor of taking part in a massive, “unthinkably callous and cruel” $325 million medical fraud scheme on Wednesday, according to federal prosecutors.
The verdict against Jorge Zamora-Quezada — a 63-year-old rheumatologist from Mission, Texas — came after a 25-day trial in which prosecutors said he falsely diagnosed patients with lifelong illnesses, then gave them toxic drugs to treat those diseases, prosecutors said in a news release.
“The conduct in this case was heinous,” Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski said in a statement, adding that “Zamora-Quezada falsely diagnosed vulnerable patients, including the young, elderly, and disabled, with lifelong diseases requiring invasive treatments that those patients did not in fact need.”
CJ Porter, a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services investigator, said in a statement that the guilty verdict means Zamora-Quezada “will pay a steep price for his unthinkably callous and cruel criminal conduct, committed for the sheer sake of greed.”
U.S. District Judge Ricardo Hinojosa is set to sentence Zamora-Quezada March 27 on the charges — one count of criminal conspiracy to commit health care fraud, seven counts of health care fraud, and one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice, according to prosecutors.
When prosecutors announced the indictment against Zamora-Quezada in May 2018, they said his alleged misdiagnosing went back to 2000 and included “various degenerative diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis.”
“This was a long case, it was drawn out,” said Trey Martinez, an attorney for Zamora-Quezada, the McAllen Monitor reported. “We feel that we presented plenty of evidence in regards to the doctor’s innocence and we’re just going to continue to take some of these issues before the court.”
Zamora-Quezada was arrested in May 2018, accused in the scheme to defraud insurers by misdiagnosing and overtreating his patients, according to the Monitor.
“As evidenced by the length of trial, this was a massive investigation into one of the worst medical fraudsters,” said U.S. Attorney Ryan K. Patrick of the Southern District of Texas. “Patients were put through unneeded anxiety and pain so the doctor could make millions.”
Prosecutors said that the evidence at trial showed how the doctor wrongly diagnosed “a large number of patients with rheumatoid arthritis, a lifelong, incurable disease” — which he then treated with “toxic, medically unnecessary medications like chemotherapy drugs.”
One victim was only 13 and endured needless chemotherapy injections, hourslong IV infusions and “other excessive, repetitive and profit-driven medical procedures,” creating physical and emotional problems for the child, prosecutors said.
Investigators said Zamora-Quezada had medical offices throughout the San Antonio and south Texas areas, which he traveled between using his Maserati and private jet. Prosecutors said both the plane and luxury car were emblazoned with the doctor’s initials, “ZQ.”
“Rarely do we see such an egregious case of health care fraud, where so many patients received years of unnecessary and debilitating treatments,” said Agent Christopher Combs of the FBI’s San Antonio office.
Prosecutors said in 2018 that Zamora-Quezada and “his co-conspirators allegedly obstructed investigations by causing the creation of false and fictitious patient records, and concealed thousands of medical records from Medicare by stashing them in an unsecured and dilapidated barn located in the Rio Grande Valley.”
KVEO reported this week that “the doctor’s wife, Meisy Zamora and their former billing supervisor Estella Natera [were] both found not guilty of the conspiracy to commit health care fraud charge they faced.”
This story was originally published January 16, 2020 at 6:54 PM with the headline "Texas doctor gave fake diagnoses — and toxic drugs — in $325 million scam, feds say."
