UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

EASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN

SOUTHERN DIVISION

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

CRIM. CASE NO. 14-20779

Plaintiff, CRIM. CASE NO. 15-20311

v. PAUL D. BORMAN

UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

DR. ARIA OMAR SABIT,

Defendant.

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PARTIAL ORDER OF RESTITUTION: $1,568,622 ON FALSE AND

FRAUDULENT MEDICARE CLAIMS RELATED TO DEFENDANT’S GUILTY

PLEA TO C.D.CA SUPERSEDING INFORMATION: 15-CR-20311

The Superseding Information filed in the Central District of California on May 14,

2015 and transferred to the Eastern District of Michigan charges Defendant Aria Sabit

and co-conspirators with a single count of Conspiracy to Commit Health Care Fraud, 18

U.S.C. §1349, and Criminal Forfeiture Provisions contained in §§981(a)(1)(c), 982(a)(7)

and 28 U.S.C. §2461(1) involving medical procedures conducted in hospitals located in

the Central District of California and the Eastern District of Michigan from February

2010, and continuing through August 2012. 

The Introductory Allegations focus on his involvement with Apex Medical

Technologies, LLC (APEX), and his violation of Title 42 U.S. Code §1320a-7b (the AntiKickback Statute): Sabit was an enrolled Medicare provider.

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The California Information “Manner and Means of the Conspiracy” stated that

Sabit’s involvement in the kickback scheme involving Apex implant devices caused 

Sabit to 

1. refer some of his patients in C.D.CA and E.D.MI for spinal

surgery who did not medically need surgery, and refer

patients for more complex surgeries than were medically

necessary to treat the patients, and

2. at times, based on financial incentives provided to him by

Apex, over-instrument his patients by using more Apex spinal

implant devices in surgery than were medically necessary to

treat his patients, causing serious bodily injury to at least

some of his patients.

Finally, Paragraph 37 the Superseding Information specified that the conduct of

Sabit and his co-conspirators caused the submission of $11,243,118 false and fraudulent

claims to Medicare, resulting in Medicare paying approximately $1,568,622 on those

false and fraudulent claims.

At Sabit’s Plea hearing on November 16, 2015 (Dkt. #94), Defendant Sabit pled

guilty to the California Superseding Information involving the Apex Spinal Implant

devices, affirming the following:

Court: All the surgeries that you performed using Apex

spinal implant devices were predicated on

illegal kickbacks and false statements which

made all those claims false and fraudulent; is

that correct?

Sabit: Yes.

Plea Hearing TR. Dkt. # 94, P.21.

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Court: Were they also predicated on false statements

that were made to the Medicare program that

you were going to be compliant with all

Medicare rules and regulations including

compliance with the anti-kickback statute?

Sabit: Yes.

Plea Hearing TR. Dkt #94, P.24.

Based on this California Superseding Information, and Defendant Sabit’s Plea of

guilty to that conspiracy court, the Court concludes that the restitution amount applicable

to the payments for the false California Medicare submissions is the amount paid, to wit,

$1,568,622. In addition, to the extent that Sabit’s conduct in the aforementioned cases

also caused injuries to individual victim-patients in Cr. #15-20311, the Court will deal

with those additional restitution claims at the Court’s hearing on August 14-15, 2018. 

Further, the August 14-15, 2018 hearing will deal with restitution claims of all

victims related to the Michigan First Superseding Information, charging Health Care

fraud, 18 U.S.C. §1347, and Unlawful Distribution of a Controlled Substance, 21 U.S.C.

841(a)(1), and forfeiture allegations: Cr. #14-20779.

LEGAL DISCUSSION

In United States v. Harold Jones, 641 F.3d 706, 714 (6th Cir. 2011), a case

involving mail fraud and health care fraud convictions, the Sixth Circuit noted:

Jones’s healthcare fraud and mail fraud convictions contain as

elements schemes to defraud. The district court may

therefore, order restitution for any loss, suffered by a victim

of Jones’s scheme. . . . [I]n the context of a conviction

following a plea agreement . . . the scope of the scheme is

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defined by “the plea agreement, the plea colloquy, and other

statements made by the parties. . . .”

The Sixth Circuit noted that Title 18 U.S.C. §3663A(a)(2) defines victim, “in the case of

an offense that involves as an element a scheme, conspiracy , or pattern of criminal

activity, any person directly harmed by the defendant’s criminal conduct in the course of

the scheme, conspiracy or pattern.”

In United States v. Boggs, 2018 WL 2474066 (6th Cir. 2018), the Sixth Circuit held

that under the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act (MVRA):

“where an offense ‘involves as an element a scheme,’

restitution should be ordered for ‘any person directly harmed

by the defendant’s criminal conduct in the course of the

scheme.’ 18 U.S.C. §3663(a)(2). Mail fraud ‘involves as an

element a scheme,’ . . . . Accordingly, when we have applied

the MVRA in the context of mail fraud conviction, we have

read this statutory definition of ‘victim’ to allow for

restitution for the loss attributable to all the victims of a

defendant’s scheme to defraud, even when the defendant was

not indicted or convicted of fraud with respect to each

victim.’ United States v. Jones, 641 F.3d 706, 714 (6th Cir.

2011) (emphasis added).

The Boggs Opinion added:

In United States v. Winans, to take one notable example, we

determined that a restitution order for 612 victims of wire

fraud was justified under the MVRA even though the

defendant pleaded guilty to one count involving just two

victims. 748 F.3d 268, 272-73 (6th Cir. 2014). In another

case, United States v. Churn, we held that a defendant

convicted on seven counts of bank fraud could be ordered to

pay a restitution amount more than double “the amount of

harm linking to his convicted counts.” 800 F.3d 768, 781-82

(6th Cir. 2015). These cases offer strong support for the

district court’s restitution award here.

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Continuing, the Sixth Circuit did note two critical limitations to this opinion:

First, a district court can award restitution greater than the

losses in charged counts “only when the loss is attributable to

the precise scheme that was an element of the defendant’s

convicted offense.” Jones, 641 F.3d at 714. And second, “the

scope of the scheme is defined by the indictment for purposes

of restitution.” Id.

In concluding, the Court noted:

But the district court’s restitution calculation here violated

neither of those tenets. The 21 additional contracts were part

of the “precise scheme” that undergirded the four charged

mail-fraud counts. The additional contracts were from the

same time period as the contracts involved in the charged

counts and involved the same types of nonconformities. 

Moreover, the superseding indictment made clear that the

scope of the scheme stretched beyond the charged contracts.

In the instant case, the loss is attributable to the precise scheme set forth in the

California Information.

Accordingly, the Court Orders that Defendant Sabit pay restitution to the

Government of the United States in the amount of $1,568,622 on his false and fraudulent

Medicare claims scheme set forth in the C.D.CA Information charging Conspiracy to

Commit Health Care Fraud and Forfeiture, that was transferred to this Court: Cr. #15-

020311.

SO ORDERED.

s/Paul D. Borman 

PAUL D. BORMAN

UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

Dated: July 25, 2018

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CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE

The undersigned certifies that a copy of the foregoing order was served upon each

attorney or party of record herein by electronic means or first class U.S. mail on July 25,

2018.

s/Deborah Tofil 

Case Manager

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