Peter Wong, founder and former CEO of Sunrise Shoes and Pedorthic Service, Sacramento, California, was sentenced to five years in prison for a healthcare fraud scheme that targeted the Veterans Affairs Northern California Health Care System (VANCHCS).
According to federal prosecutors, between March 2008 and February 2015, Wong and the former VANCHCS chief of podiatry, Anthony Lazzarino, engaged in a scheme to defraud the VA by billing for custom pedorthic work and services that were prescribed but never delivered to veterans.
Wong, Lazzarino, and Jai Aing Chen, Wong’s former employee, pleaded guilty in December 2016 to making false statements to the VA about where the shoes were manufactured in the course of applying for a national contract worth over $11 million per year. A federal jury found Wong and Lazzarino guilty of healthcare fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud on May 17.
Chen was sentenced in August to one year and one day in prison. Lazzarino is scheduled to be sentenced in February 2020. He faces a maximum statutory penalty of ten years in prison and a $250,000 fine for each healthcare fraud count, and five years in prison and a $250,000 fine for the wire fraud conspiracy count.
