LOS ANGELES — A Los Angeles County medical lab owner was sentenced Tuesday to nine years behind bars for her role in a $369 million fraud scheme that exploited the COVID-19 pandemic and resulted in false billings and theft from federal programs.
Lourdes Navarro, 66, of Glendale, pleaded guilty two years ago to a charge of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and wire fraud, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Navarro ran Baldwin Park-based Matias Clinical Laboratory Inc., also known as Health Care Providers Laboratory, which she ran with husband Imran Shams.
The lab performed COVID-19 screening tests for nursing homes and other facilities with vulnerable elderly populations, as well as primary and secondary schools, prosecutors said.
To increase reimbursements for the lab, Navarro fraudulently added claims for respiratory pathogen panel tests even though providers and facility administrators did not want or need them, according to her plea agreement filed in Los Angeles federal court.
The couple submitted phony claims to Medicare, the HRSA’s COVID-19 Uninsured Program, and an insurance company for unnecessary respiratory pathogen panel testing procured through illegal kickbacks and bribes, prosecutors said.
In addition to her prison penalty, Navarro was ordered to forfeit $11.6 million in funds the government previously seized from three bank accounts. The total amount seized and forfeited from Navarro and Shams is $14.51 million. Navarro also was ordered to pay $46.73 million in restitution.
Shams, 66, pleaded guilty in January 2023 to conspiracy to commit health care fraud and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
In May 2024, Shams was also sentenced to five years in prison in connection with a 2017 plea in New York to conspiracy to commit money laundering, conspiracy to pay and receive kickbacks, and defrauding the United States by obstructing the lawful functions of the IRS. Three years of that sentence will run consecutively to his California sentence.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the couple paid kickbacks for specimens and test orders, and laundered profits through shell companies and the purchase of real estate, luxury items and personal goods and services.
Shams had been excluded from all participation in Medicare since he and Navarro were convicted in 2000 on felony counts of Medi-Cal fraud, grand theft, money laundering and identity theft, according to court documents.
The couple concealed Shams’ role in the lab and his prior convictions, prosecutors said.