Company pleads guilty to falsely reporting doctors’ salaries

Published 12:00 am Sunday, January 28, 2001

A company that operates three Kentucky medical clinics will pay at least $50,000 in restitution to seven doctors from India and Burma after pleading guilty to submitting false statements to federal agencies.Mountain After Hours Corp. entered guilty pleas Friday to 15 counts of giving false statements to the U.S. Department of Labor and to the Immigration and Naturalization Service when it hired immigrant doctors.The company operates Richmond Medical Clinic, McKee Medical Clinic and the Mountain After Hours Clinic in Hazard. The seven doctors were employed by the company in 1998.The actual amount of restitution may be higher. The U.S. attorneys office wants the company to pay $385,000. The company will also pay a fine; the amount will hinge on the restitution.Still facing criminal charges in the case is Lexington resident Dr. P.G. Raithatha, part-owner of Mountain After Hours, which also owned now-defunct clinics in Somerset, Nicholasville and London. Raithatha, who has pleaded innocent, is to stand trial on 20 counts of submitting false statements and other charges. The trial is set for July 2.The seven doctors came to Kentucky under a federal program that allows foreign doctors to work in the United States if they have contracts to practice in areas where medical care is lacking, Assistant U.S. Attorney David Grise said.Mountain After Hours told the Department of Labor that the seven doctors would receive salaries ranging from $91,000 to $105,000 in 1998, but in fact paid them less. Just how much less they were paid is in dispute.Sentencing is set for late August.

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