Jefferson Siegel
Dr. Lawrence Levitan, flanked by police detectives, walks into into Manhattan Supreme Court on Wednesday to face allegations that he stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from Beth Israel Medical Center.
A brazen Manhattan obstetrician-gynecologist pocketed $ 267,000 worth of insurance payments that should have gone to Beth Israel Medical Center, prosecutors alleged Wednesday.
Dimwitted doctor Lawrence Levitan, 58, allegedly deposited the insurance checks of at least 685 patients directly into his own personal bank account and never passed along money to Beth Israel where he worked.
“Physicians are sworn to ‘do no harm,’ but Dr. Levitan is charged with doing just that,” Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance said in a statement announcing the indictment.
“The scheme caused Beth Israel Medical Center to be defrauded out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
Levitan was arraigned Wednesday for six charges of grand larceny and tax fraud, the most serious of which carries a sentence of 15 years. Justice Bonnie Wittner set his bail at $ 50,000. He was allowed to leave court provided he post bail by Monday.
Both Levitan and his lawyer would not comment, and no one answered the phone at a number for the doctor’s home in Lawrence, L.I.
Court papers detail a plot astounding in its audacity.
Levitan participated in a program in which physicians working a Beth Israel would split payments evenly with the Gramercy hospital.
Instead of letting a contractor for the hospital handle billing as was common practice, Levitan did the work himself, according to court papers.
That meant insurance companies sent him payments directly. Levitan allegedly kept the cash to himself, and never gave Beth Israel its cut.
Between February 2010 and September 2012 he deposited $ 530,000 into his personal bank account — $ 267,000 of which he owed to the hospital, court papers charge.
His crimes were “for the purpose of funding life’s luxuries,” prosecutor Leah Keith said in court during Levitan’s arraignment.
A spokesman for Beth Israel, Jim Mandler, said it had cut ties with Levitan.
“As soon as Beth Israel learned of this matter, we brought it to the attention of the District Attorney’s Office and cooperated fully in their investigation. We also terminated Dr. Levitan’s employment and suspended his hospital privileges,” Mandler said in a statement.
Keith added that Levitan had also stopped working at an outside practice.
He has “informed his patients he suffers from a medical disability that caused him to take an early retirement,” Keith said.
Justice Wittner had little sympathy for Levitan.
“This is a very serious case which took planning and foresight,” she said.
Yahoo! Local News – New York Daily News
http://newyork.greatlocalnews.info/?p=13631
via Great Local News: New York http://newyork.greatlocalnews.info
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