A former Baldwin County doctor was sentenced to four years in prison for charges including bank fraud and aggravated identity theft.
Rassan M. Tarabein, 63, a former neurologist and pain doctor, also faced charges of making false statements to federal agents and willfully refusing to pay court-ordered restitution, according to a March 31 news release.
“Defendants who lie to the court and who conceal assets rather than paying the victims of their crime what they are owed will be pursued by the Department of Justice and our law enforcement partners," U.S. Attorney Sean P. Costello said in the release. "Criminals like Tarabein will not be allowed to escape the consequences of their conduct.”
Tarabein pleaded guilty to healthcare fraud and illegal distribution of controlled medications in 2017, the release reported
In the southern district of Alabama, a federal judge mandated Tarabein pay his victims more than $15 million in reparations. While awaiting sentencing for his federal case in 2018, Tarabein issued cashier's checks to himself totaling more than $100,000 without the judge's knowledge or permission. Tarabein falsely told his probation officer that the checks were for the payment of bills, according to the release.
He was sentenced to five years in federal prison in June 2018 but was released early and moved to Fairhope home confinement in November 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the release reported.
During this time, Tarabein reissued the 2018 cashier's checks to himself and made no payment towards his restitution due between 2020 and 2022. The jurors then looked at evidence suggesting he had access to and spent large sums of money on himself, according to the release.
In December 2021, Tarabein fraudulently deposited money into his bank account using information from another account he had originally agreed to forfeit and had been closed years earlier as a part of his 2017 convictions for healthcare fraud and drug use. He also continued to hide assets and lied to his probation officer in early 2022 about his financial disclosures, the release said.
In April 2022, FBI investigators detained Tarabein at Pensacola International Airport as he was en route to the Middle East. Authorities discovered him in possession of, among other items, a $31,000 fake check from a victim company in Georgia payable to him at his Fairhope home, according to the release.
The victim company, which had previously lost tens of thousands of dollars as a result of a successful deposit of a nearly identical false check months earlier, was represented by its name and signature on Tarabein's false check, the release said.
