A federal grand jury in Greenville charged Kevin S. Murdock, Thomas C. Lee, and Vidhya V. Narayanan with health care fraud and conspiracy to commit health care fraud, according to a statement released by the U.S. Attorney’s Office on Mar. 11.
The indictment alleges that the three individuals engaged in a scheme to defraud health care benefit programs of millions of dollars through Premier Medical Laboratory Services, which was owned and operated by Murdock. Lee and Narayanan were high-level employees at the company.
According to prosecutors, Premier Medical Laboratory Services offered diagnostic testing services for medical providers, including COVID-19 testing. The defendants are accused of submitting false claims to the federal government for individual tests when those tests had actually been pooled together for faster processing. They also allegedly manipulated test processing software, resulting in billing for tests that were virtually worthless and not eligible for reimbursement.
Each defendant faces up to 10 years in federal prison, a fine of up to $250,000, and three years of supervised release if convicted. Murdock previously agreed to a consent judgment of $27,544,460 after acknowledging there was a likelihood he would be found liable in a civil action brought against him by the United States and several states under various false claims statutes.
The investigation was conducted by the FBI Columbia Field Office, the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General, Defense Criminal Investigative Service, and the South Carolina Attorney General's Office's Vulnerable Adults and Medicaid Fraud Control Unit. Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Watkins is prosecuting the case.
All charges are accusations at this stage; the defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
