Maryland, My Maryland

 From the Balmer Sun, Rockville man indicted for alleged $100 million COVID fraud scheme

A Rockville man was indicted by a federal grand jury on Friday in connection with an alleged COVID-19 fraud scheme of more than $100 million, the U.S. Attorney for Maryland said.

Marc Aaron Potash, 57, of Rockville, was charged with conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud, seven counts of healthcare fraud and five counts of conducting transactions in criminally derived proceeds, the federal prosecutor’s office said.

Between January 2022 and May 2026, according to the office, Potash allegedly conspired to enrich himself as well as a Gaithersburg-based company he founded and served as its CEO, Tiero, LLC, by submitting false and fraudulent claims to Medicare, Medicaid, the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program and other insurers for self-administered COVID-19 tests.

The office said that Potash and his co-conspirators sent false emails, letters and other documents to the Maryland Department of Health to get a Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments certification for the company. Those documents falsely claimed Tiero’s medical providers were performing on-site COVID testing at the company, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said, and used the CLIA license to make claims to insurers. 

Instead, they were shipping over-the-counter COVID tests to insured people across the country, and submitting more than $100 million in fraudulent claims that resulted in more than $50 million in insurance payments to Tiero, the office said.

Prosecutors allege that Potash bought a Range Rover, a Mercedes-Benz and $4 million in property in Beallsville, in Montgomery County, and made security transfers totalling more than $12 million.

If convicted, Potash faces a maximum of 10 years in federal prison for conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud and each count of healthcare fraud and conducting transactions in criminally derived proceeds, the office said, although it noted that actual sentences typically are less than the maximum.

$100,000,000? The man thinks big. I guess it's a little late to expect to get much of it back.