A New Jersey man was sentenced to a decade in federal prison Monday for orchestrating one of the largest no-fault insurance scams in New York City history — including coaching doctors to lie under oath and bribing hospital workers for contact details of car crash victims.
Bradley Pierre, 41, was also ordered to forfeit $3.5 million and fork over $1.5 million in restitution at his Manhattan Federal Court sentencing.
The Closter, N.J., man was indicted alongside several others in January 2022, including licensed doctors, a lawyer, and an NYPD officer. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bribery and conspiracy to defraud tax authorities in December, admitting he captained the $60 million fraud.
The scam targeting automobile insurance companies exploited laws in New York and the Garden State requiring them to cover claims for certain kinds of crashes — typically by directly paying providers rather than billing the victim — without laying blame, which averted protracted legal disputes, according to court filings.
From 2008 until 2021, Pierre and several others ran multiple clinics in New York — including Veda Medical, Sky Medical, Sun Medical, and Rutland Medical — that falsely claimed to be operated by licensed physicians, the feds say.
Knowing the clinics couldn’t bill insurance companies for no-fault claims if non-physicians controlled them, Pierre directed doctors to lie about their ownership under oath, according to charging docs.
Pierre stole more than $20 million during the scheme by transferring cash to bank accounts he controlled or straight up treating the clinics’ accounts as his piggy bank, he admitted in January.
He further pocketed millions in kickbacks by steering prescriptions to certain pharmacies and patients to his wife Nonna Shikh’s law firm to squeeze more out of insurance companies in litigation.
Pierre also pocketed millions by steering patients to get MRIs at a facility where he had substantial control, according to the feds, scheming with a doctor to falsify injuries so they could bill for harmful and unnecessary services and beef up the bogus suits brought by his wife.
The brazen scheme saw Pierre and others bribe hospital workers, 911 dispatchers, and others for confidential contact details of car crash victims in a bid to fill the clinics and an MRI facility, according to the feds.
In a statement, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams estimated Pierre’s crimes constituted the largest no-fault automobile insurance scam in the city’s history.
“Through bribery and manipulation, Pierre callously exploited the system, denying accident victims the rightful care they deserved,” Williams said.
Pierre and his attorney could not be reached.
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