A Florida medical device firm that employs a man who inspired the character played by Jonah Hill in the movie “The Wolf of Wall Street” was raided by federal agents, a lawyer for the company said.
Boca Raton-based Med-Care Diabetic & Medical Supplies Inc., which employs Daniel M. Porush, who inspired the movie character Donnie Azoff, is complying with a federal probe, said Stephen Best, a lawyer for the company.
Med-Care, which was accused in a whistle-blower suit last year of participating in a scheme to submit false claims to Medicare, has been aware of a regulatory probe, Mr. Best said. A search warrant was served at the office Wednesday, according to a law enforcement official who asked not to be named because the information isn't public.
(More: Former Stratton Oakmont broker charged with fraud)
Mr. Porush declined to comment when contacted by phone.
“I reached out to the specific special agent in charge saying I'm happy to provide any information,” Mr. Best said. He denied the allegations in the lawsuit.
'SOME SNAFUS'
“I stand by everything this company is doing,” Mr. Best said. “When you're dealing with 350,000 patients around the country on a multiple times a year basis, there may be some snafus. At the end of the day, I've looked into every specific allegation. I've never found there to be a problem.”
Mr. Porush is married to a co-owner of the device firm, Lisa Porush, according to Mr. Best.
A former telemarketer at a firm that worked with Med-Care alleged in a lawsuit last year that the companies, along with Daniel and Lisa Porush and others, took part in a conspiracy to submit false claims to Medicare for items such as diabetic supplies, nebulizers, back braces and massage therapy devices.
As part of the scheme, consumers were subject to high-pressure sales tactics and false representations, the former telemarketer, Tiffany Bumbury, alleged. Med-Care received more than $84 million from Medicare in connection with the improper sales scheme, Ms. Bumbury alleged in her February 2014 complaint in West Palm Beach federal court.
Daniel Porush was “a driving force behind the submission of false claims and false statements to Medicare,” Ms. Bumbury said in the lawsuit.
While not listed as an officer of the company in corporate filings, Mr. Porush was involved in it management, and used a corporate credit card and a Med-Care-funded entity, Blue Giant Enterprises, to make “exorbitant” expenditures, including a $12,000 monthly lease of a Rolls-Royce, Mr. Bumbury alleged.
Mr. Azoff was portrayed by Mr. Hill as the Quaalude-popping right-hand man of
Jordan Belfort at his Stratton Oakmont, the Long Island brokerage depicted in the movie where Mr. Porush formerly worked.
The firm defrauded investors out of more than $200 million by pushing penny stocks and manipulating their prices from its offices in Lake Success, N.Y., before it was shut in 1996, according to prosecutors.
In 2002, Mr. Porush was sentenced to four years in prison for his role in the boiler-room plot. Mr. Belfort was sentenced to 3 1/2 years in 2003.
The whistle-blower case is U.S. ex rel. Tiffany Bumbury v. Med-Care Diabetic & Medical Supplies Inc., 9:10-cv-81634, U.S. District Court, Southern District of Florida (West Palm Beach).
