A nurse from Anaheim passed envelopes of cash — $600 every month — to an elderly couple enrolled in hospice services they did not need.
A husband and wife in Covina used fake hospice billings to cover mortgage and car payments, international flights, and other personal bills. Twenty-two of their patients did not have terminal illnesses, investigators found.
A 76-year-old woman, already awaiting trial for hospice fraud, operated three fraudulent facilities in secret while out on bond. She’s since been convicted thrice and is serving time in a federal prison. Her husband, whose name was used to conceal her involvement, is now facing charges as well.
All were nabbed under “Operation Never Say Die,” a new crackdown on hospice and health care fraud in California and Los Angeles County by the U.S. Department of Justice, the FBI, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid and other federal agencies, officials said at a news conference Friday, April 2.
Officials announced the arrests of eight people, including three nurses and a psychologist, and charges against seven others for allegedly participating in fraudulent schemes originating in Southern California that siphoned more than $50 million from the national health care system.
Authorities carried out early morning raids and arrests in Anaheim, Covina, Lakewood, Hollywood and Idaho this week as part of the operation.
“The Southern California region is a high-risk environment for hospice-related and many other forms of health care fraud,” said Akil Davis, the assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office, in a statement. “The United States loses hundreds of billions of dollars annually to healthcare fraud at the expense of all American taxpayers, whose benefits decrease as premiums, co-payments and taxes grow. Our aim is to reverse that trend with ‘Operation Never Say Die’ and others like it.”
Five of the nine federal cases involved hospices that fraudulently billed millions of dollars to Medicare for services that either were not necessary or never provided. Three allegedly bilked labor unions’ health plans.
Hospice fraud in California has become a political battleground as Republicans attempt to bloody Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is eyeing a run for president, on his handling of matter. The push comes after President Donald Trump and others found success highlighting child care fraud in Minnesota.
A state audit, released in 2022 and frequently cited in the new investigations, flagged the rapid and suspicious growth of the industry in Los Angeles County and in communities like Van Nuys. The number of hospices in the five-county Greater Los Angeles area spiked from 722 in 2018 to 1,799 in 2024. Today, the same region — L.A., Orange, San Bernardino, Riverside and Ventura counties — accounts for nearly a quarter of the hospices in the country.
California instituted a moratorium on new hospice licenses, revoked more than 280 licenses since the audit and charged 109 individuals with hospice-related offenses. Another 300 providers are actively under investigation.
“California takes fraud extremely seriously and has zero tolerance for the abuse of public programs — especially those as sensitive as end-of-life care,” Newsom said in a March 24 statement. “That’s why I advanced a moratorium on new hospice licenses four years ago and established the California Hospice Fraud Task Force. Through this coordinated effort, the state has been investigating and prosecuting fraudsters for years.”
Experts, however, say that so many hospices were created prior to the moratorium that fraud continues to this day. At the same time, home health care companies, which were not affected by the moratorium, have surged as the number of new hospices slowed.
A CBS News investigation in March highlighted Los Angeles as “ground zero” for hospice fraud and found that more than 700 hospices had “multiple red flags for fraud” under criteria outlined in the state audit.
Recent concerns led hospice and home health care providers in California to send a letter to Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS), requesting a federal freeze on new enrollments in Medicaid from both industries until “more durable corrective measures are developed and implemented.”
Enrolling in Medicare is a two-pronged process involving both state and federal agencies. Hospices receive a license to operate from California, but cannot bill Medicare until the hospice is certified by CMS. That means both sides share responsibility for catching and rooting out fraud.
An investigation by the Southern California News Group found that one group operating out of a Van Nuys office building registered 22 hospices to the same address in a year, including 15 incorporated in a single day inside a single suite. Those hospices received state and federal approval — despite significant overlaps — and later collected $12.3 million through Medicare and Medi-Cal in 2023 and 2024.
CMS is reviewing “every single hospice in California” and has revoked approvals for 220 hospices in the last 10 weeks, according to Oz.
“We will surpass the governor’s achievements in the first four years within the month, we believe,” Oz said.
Eliminating fraud would “double the life expectancy” of Medicare’s trust fund and ensure more Americans receive the services promised to them, Oz said.
Newsom’s office did not respond to a request to comment on the news conference.
The cases announced this week did not appear to be directly related to each other. Some were built off older court cases and investigations that started under prior administrations.
Bill Essayli, the first assistant U.S. attorney for California, said one case began in 2022, but did not progress for years. “Under the prior administration, fraud was not the focus,” he said.
Those arrested and/or charged under “Operation Never Say Die” include:
- Lolita Beronilla Minerd, 55, a nurse from Anaheim, who is accused of submitting more than $9.1 million in fraudulent claims to hospice, and paying kickbacks, including $600 per month to the elderly couple, to beneficiaries. Roughly 85% of the hospice’s patients left the facility without dying, nearly five times more than the national average of 17.2%, officials said.
- Psychologist Gladwin Gill, 66, and his wife, Amelou Gill, 70, both of Covina, who allegedly received more than $4 million through fraudulent claims made by hospices registered under their daughter’s name. Gladwin Gill had multiple felony convictions, making it unlikely he would have been approved to operate a hospice.
- Nita Almuete Paddit Palma, 76, and her husband, Adolfo, Catbagan, 68, of Glendale, who allegedly billed Medicare for at least $4.8 million in fraudulent claims for patients who were not terminally ill and did not receive treatment. Palma is currently incarcerated in a federal prison in Seattle. The couple opened three hospices from June 2022 to April 2024 under Catbagan’s name because Palma was legally barred from doing so. She operated at least three while out on bond.
- Evelyn Tindimobuna, 51, a nurse from Chatsworth, who is accused of collecting $3.8 million from Medicare and paying kickbacks to marketers who referred hospice patients. Investigators interviewed patients and learned they were not terminally ill, a requirement to qualify for hospice care.
- Ivan Verne Lauritzen, 50 of Simi Valley, who is accused of fraudulently billing more than $580,000 to Medicare. His hospice, Valley Pacific Hospice, had its Medicare enrollment revoked in 2024. More than 75% of patients were discharged alive and Lauritzen allegedly forged at least one physician’s signature on Medicare enrollment forms, officials alleged.
- Tolu Aulava-Moala, 51, of Carson; John Nicola, 77, of El Segundo; Crysta Richter, 40 of Torrance; and John Keohuloa, 49, of Long Beach, who allegedly submitted more than $19 million in fraudulent claims to a labor union’s health plan from 2010 to 2023. A former owner testified in a 2022 case that the companies falsified patient records and billed under chiropractors’ names and insurance numbers without their knowledge.
- Gregory Cartmell, 62, of Coeur D’Alene, Idaho, and Vincent Surace, 87, of McKinney, Texas, who are accused of working together to defraud a union health plan. Cartmell billed $9.14 million, from 2018 to 2022, to the plan, and switched to billing under Surace’s name after the plan barred Cartmell in 2020.
- Sonia Griffin, 51, of Lakewood, who submitted nearly $5 million in fraudulent claims to the same plan and similarly billed under others’ names to similarly bypass her company’s blacklisting.
- Young Joo Koo, 59, of East Hollywood, who is alleged to have posed as a nurse and as a doctor and falsified medical examinations necessary for green card approval.
Essayli made it clear the operation is “the beginning, not the end” of the federal investigations into fraud in California.
“You’re going to see more of these charges, more arrests, more of the takedowns,” he said.
The spotlight on fraud in California will likely only get hotter as others continue to pile on.
The U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Oversight and Government reform launched its own investigation into hospice fraud March 23 and sent a letter to Newsom demanding documents and communications regarding its internal controls and oversight over federally funded hospice programs.