Health-care center owners indicted on fraud charges

BY SETH MANDEL
Staff Writer

The owners of two area health-care facilities were indicted last week on charges of violating the Medicaid fraud kickback statute.

Edward Sigle, 80, of Monroe, and Edward Acquaye, 55, of New Brunswick, are accused of accepting financial kickbacks from former pharmacist Michael Stavitski, who owned Belmar Hometown Pharmacy in Belmar, Monmouth County, in return for directing business to that pharmacy.

According to the Middlesex County Grand Jury indictments, Sigle, who formerly operated the Country View Care Center on Buckelew Avenue, Monroe, accepted an unspecified amount from Stavitski between March 2001 and February 2002.

The indictments state that Acquaye, who operates Lincoln Rest Home, Lincoln Avenue in Jamesburg, received at least $4,800 from Stavitski between November 2001 and February 2002.

Acquaye declined to comment to the Sentinel this week when reached at the rest home. The Monroe facility is no longer in operation.

According to a press release from the state Department of Criminal Justice, the Medicaid program “prohibits the paying of cash or offering anything of value to a Medicaid provider in exchange for directing business to providers, such as pharmacies.”

Both Sigle and Acquaye are charged with accepting money in return for directing the facilities’ residents or caretakers to fill their prescriptions at the Belmar Hometown Pharmacy. Each faces up to three years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000.

The Medicaid fraud kickback statute does not require the state to determine the exact dollar amounts of kickbacks, though state investigators Anthony Iannice and Jacqueline Latty and Deputy Attorney General Marquis D. Jones Jr. are looking into that. Jones represented the Office of Insurance Fraud Prosecutor before the grand jury, which returned indictments on the two suspects Jan. 31.

Stavitski, 42, of the Morganville section of Marlboro in Monmouth County, was arrested in February 2002 on charges of health care claims fraud, Medicaid fraud and theft by deception. He was released from prison in June 2005, having served about one year of a maximum seven-year sentence for Medicaid and insurance fraud, according to information provided by the state.

In 2002, the Office of Insurance Fraud Prosecutor accused Stavitski of submitting fictitious claims for prescription medications to the Division of Medical Assistance, and received compensation from members of the Medicaid program for medications that were not dispensed.

At the time, Stavitski owned and operated four pharmacies — the Belmar Hometown Pharmacy, Wall Pharmacy in Wall Township, Avon Pharmacy in Avon-by-the-Sea, and Spring Lake Heights Pharmacy in Spring Lake Heights. After Stavitski’s arrest, those facilities were closed indefinitely.

According to Rachel Sacharow, of the Office of the Insurance Fraud Prosecutor, Stavitski’s Medicaid privileges were suspended for seven years, his pharmacy license was suspended for one year, and he was ordered to pay $1.1 million in restitution and penalties.