Former Tennessee State Sen. Steve Dickerson and past associates of his will have to pay more than $4.1 million to settle claims that their medical service engaged in wrongdoing. This, according to a press release that staff members at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Tennessee published this week.
Read the full story
One or more people broke in and vandalized six post offices in Middle Tennessee either Sunday night or early Monday morning, one day before an election where some people voted using absentee ballots.
Nathaniel Sims, a spokesman for the U.S. Postal Inspector in Brentwood, told The Tennessee Star in an email Thursday that people don’t generally break into postal facilities.
Read the full story
A federal judge has granted prosecutors’ requests to intervene in whistleblower complaints against Comprehensive Pain Specialists (CPS), and Tennessee Sen. Steve Dickerson (R-TN-20) is being added as a defendant, multiple media outlets report. Judge Aleta Trauger of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee granted the federal and state prosecutors’ requests, according to MSN. They have 90 days to file their own complaints. Several lawsuits filed by former employees of CPS were unsealed Tuesday, accusing the leaders, including Dickerson, of a fraud scheme, NewsChannel 5 said. They allegedly made millions of dollars in payments from Medicare and violated the False Claims Act. Suzanne Alt of Missouri is a former CMS employee who alleges in the main complaint that the company made false claims for lab tests that were not needed. The court document said she “was personally told to increase the frequency of the drug screens” that were most costly instead of a cheaper alternative. The lawsuits have been consolidated into one case, and although the main complaint does not specifically mention the lawmaker, Dickerson is named in one of the suits alongisde co-founder Dr. Peter Kroll and former CEO John Davis. On April 8,…
Read the full story
A federal jury in Nashville found the former CEO of a closed Tennessee pain management company guilty for his alleged role in a $4 million Medicare claim kickback scheme, U.S. Attorney Don Cochran for the Middle District of Tennessee said in a press release. John Davis, 41, of Franklin, the former CEO of Comprehensive Pain Specialists (CPS) of Gallatin, was convicted of all counts including one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States and violate the Anti-Kickback Statute, and seven counts of violating the Anti-Kickback Statute, Cochran said. The scheme involved approximately $4 million in tainted durable medical equipment (DME) claims to Medicare. Meanwhile, Davis’ sentencing will be scheduled for later this year before U.S. District Judge William L. Campbell Jr., who presided over the trial, Cochran said. According to evidence presented at trial, Davis abused his position as CEO to arrange for referrals of Medicare DME orders to his co-conspirator Brenda Montgomery and her company, CCC Medical, in Camden, Cochran said. Evidence showed that Davis operated a shell company called ProMed Solutions (ProMed), which he had registered in the name of his wife. Despite having no involvement with ProMed and performing no work, Davis’ wife and ProMed received more…
Read the full story
Tennessee State Rep. Bob Ramsey, R-Maryville, has reportedly proposed a bill that could result in fewer meritless lawsuits, according to The Daily Times of Blount County. “Cases of this type can end up costing both sides in the tens of thousands of dollars, and the average citizen could not possibly match those resources,” the paper quoted Ramsey as saying. The bill, if enacted into law, would reportedly create the “Tennessee Public Participation Act.” “When a defamation suit is brought involving claims made about matters of public concern, the proposed bill would allow the defendant to petition the judge to dismiss the lawsuit,” The Daily Times reported. Sen. Steve Dickerson, R-Nashville, has reportedly filed a companion bill. “This doesn’t prevent anyone from filing a lawsuit for protection from speech,” Ramsey reportedly told The Daily Times. “The judge will be able to decide indeed if the case is frivolous.” If passed, Tennessee would become the 29th state with an anti-SLAPP statute, the paper said. According to the paper, SLAPP is short for “Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation. It specifically refers to “a trend of retaliatory lawsuits brought to threaten opponents with a lengthy and expensive court process. In these cases, the actual…
Read the full story
Can you guess who it is? Admittedly it’s tough because pretty much any Republican in Tennessee running for the state legislature claims they’re a conservative and there are plenty who forgot what they told voters once they’re elected. Even Bill Haslam claimed he was a conservative when he was campaigning. And then there are all those non-stop radio and print ads which Randy Boyd the self-described political moderate, is now buying to try and fool voters that he didn’t really mean it when he said it given that it was a terribly inconvenient truth for trying to become governor in Tennessee. But at least he’s making good on his promise to “spend whatever it takes” to buy win votes, and now with all that Irish green tax savings…. If you still can’t guess which State Senator got $1,000 in 2016 from Bill Lee, here are the clues: in 2015, a year before Bill Lee decided to send his check, this Tennessee State Senator voted in the Senate Education Committee to give in-state tuition to illegal alien students and then voted again on the Senate floor to help pass that bill two months after this State Senator was the ONLY Republican…
Read the full story