Wallingford doctor, who took cash for drug prescriptions, gets 7 years in prison, feds say [New Haven Register, Conn.]

May 22—BRIDGEPORT — A former doctor from Wallingford has been sentenced to more than seven years in prison for a scheme in which he took cash in return for opioid prescriptions, officials say.

In a release, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut's office said Anatoly Braylovsky, 52, was sentenced in federal court in Bridgeport on Wednesday to 90 months of imprisonment, followed by three years of supervised release, for controlled substances and health care fraud offenses.

The U.S. attorney's office said Braylovsky was an internal medicine physician who operated the Family Practice of Greater New Haven on North Main Street in Wallingford. It said his practice accepted patients who were insured by Medicare, Medicaid, and commercial insurance plans.

Beginning in 2014, the U.S. attorney's office said, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Wallingford Police Department received complaints about Braylovsky's prescribing practices. In early 2016, it said, investigators from both the DEA and the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection's Drug Control Division notified Braylovsky that they were concerned about his prescribing practices and informed him that some of his patients had a criminal history.

Still, the U.S. attorney's office said, investigators found that Braylovsky continued to prescribe a high quantity of opioid-based pills, as well as Alprazolam and Adderall, to a number of patients. It said they also received information that some of Braylovsky's patients, including Jennifer Bousquet, received medically unnecessary prescriptions for these drugs and were then selling the pills for profit.

The U.S. attorney's office said investigators found that Braylovsky was also selling prescriptions for large amounts of cash, and that some patients who had their prescriptions filled provided pills to Braylovsky.

In October of 2019, the U.S. attorney's office said, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services's Office of Inspector General joined the investigation when it was discovered that patients of Braylovsky were using their Medicaid or Medicare insurance to pay for medically unnecessary prescriptions.

"For at least three years, Bousquet received from Braylovsky monthly prescriptions for 170 oxycodone 30mg pills, 75 Adderall 20mg pills, and 30 alprazolam 2mg pills," it said.

The U.S. attorney's office said law enforcement utilized a confidential source, who was both a patient of Braylovsky and an associate of Bousquet, to pay Braylovsky cash in exchange for receiving a prescription for oxycodone.

On four occasions between October 2019 and January 2020, the U.S. attorney's office said the source visited Braylovsky's office, gave him $1,600 in cash, and received a prescription for 150 oxycodone 30mg pills.

Braylovsky performed no physical examination and did not discuss the source's health in those meetings, the U.S. attorney's office said, but he still billed Medicaid for each office visit. It said he also took $1,600 payments from the source on multiple other occasions, in once case giving the cash to the doctor in his car after a telehealth appointment.

"After each prescription was filled, DEA agents took the oxycodone pills into evidence," it said. "Medicaid paid for each filled prescription."

The U.S. attorney's office said Medicare and Medicaid paid more than $1.6 million for schedule II medications, such as oxycodone, between January of 2016 and May of 2020. During that same timeframe, it said, the agencies also paid his practice $590,000 for routing office visits.

"The investigation revealed that Braylovsky billed Medicare and Medicaid a total of $199,388.84 for illegitimate office visits and for unnecessary prescriptions," it said.

The U.S. attorney's office said Braylovsky and Bousquet were arrested June 4, 2020.

While out on bond awaiting trial, the case took a large turn. The U.S. attorney's office said Braylovsky expressed a desire to hire a hitman to kill or intimidate the confidential source who informed law enforcement during the investigation.

"Braylovsky then met with an undercover law enforcement officer posing as a hitman," it said.

Afterwards, the U.S. attorney's office said, he was arrested on Aug. 27, 2021, and has been detained since then.

The U.S. attorney's office said Braylovsky pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute, and to distribute, oxycodone, as well as one count of health care fraud, on Dec. 21, 2023. In court, it said, he was ordered to pay $199,388 in restitution.

The U.S. attorney's office said Bousquet pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute, and to distribute, oxycodone. She awaits sentencing, it said.

Braylovsky is also involved in a civil case, the U.S. attorney's office said, and has agreed to pay about $400,000 to settle allegations that his medical practive violated the False Claims Act by billing for medical services not rendered and issued prescriptions that weren't necessary.

The U.S. attorney's office noted that Braylovsky was the sole medical practitioner of Family Practice of Greater New Haven, and the practice is no longer operating.

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