A Staten Island doctor, the latest convict in the Biodiagnostic Laboratory Services kickback case, gets four years and will pay $127,500 after being found guilty of taking bribes to send his bloodwork to the Jersey lab.
Thomas V. Savino, 57, was sentenced on May 31 to four years and ordered to pay forfeiture of $27,500 and a $100,000 fine, having been found guilty in October 2017 of all ten counts of Anti-Kickback Statute violations and wire fraud with which he was charged in 2016.
Savino is the latest of 51 co-conspirators to be convicted in a massive kickback scheme involving Biodiagnostic Laboratory Services LLC (BLS), of Parsippany, New Jersey. 37 of the convicted are doctors; others include BLS salesmen and company officials. BLS' owner and President, David Nicoll, and Scott Nicoll, his brother, were also indicted as co-conspirators and have pleaded guilty but have yet to be sentenced.
David Nicoll, according to a New Jersey Star-Ledger exposé, "claimed to have provided prostitutes to at least five physicians in exchange for blood work orders and bought one doctor an Audi S5, a high-end turbocharged coupe that lists for more than $50,000."
From March 2006 through April 2013, the indictment in U.S. v. Thomas V. Savino alleged, BLS "routinely paid physicians bribes to induce them to refer the blood specimens of their Medicare and Private Insurer patients to BLS for testing." Savino was one of these doctors, referring $375,000 worth of Medicare business to BLS -- notwithstanding that Google shows at least 20 clinical labs in Staten Island -- for which he received cash bribes of at least $25,000.