Fed. jury convicts Dr. in fraud scheme

NORFOLK, Va. - A federal jury has convicted a Virginia Beach physician on nearly 30 counts in a fraudulent-billing scheme that bilked government health programs out of $1.2 million.

The U.S. District Court jury on Tuesday found hematology and oncology specialist Dr. Ronald Poulin guilty of all 28 counts against him. Prosecutors documented hundreds of occasions where Poulin overbilled Medicare and Tricare for more chemotherapy drugs than he had administered, charged for patient visits that never occurred, altered records to obstruct a federal investigation, and other violations.

The jury convicted the 61-year-old Poulin of one count of health-care fraud, 26 counts of filing false health-care statements and one count of altering records to obstruct the investigation. Sentencing is scheduled for March 15.