I-Team In-Depth

Insys Sales Manager Charged In Kickback Scheme

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Fifteen months after a Derby nurse admitted taking drug-company kickbacks in exchange for prescribing a powerful opioid painkiller, a former district sales manager for the company was arrested Thursday on federal charges that he helped to orchestrate the kickback scheme. Jeffrey Pearlman, of Edgewood, NJ, who was district sales manager for the New York region for Insys Therapeutics through 2015, and the sales representatives he managed “induced certain physicians, advanced practice registered nurses (APRNs) and physician assistants to prescribe the pharmaceutical company’s fentanyl spray by paying them to participate in hundreds of sham ‘Speaker Programs,’” according to a release from the U.S Attorney’s Office for Connecticut. The scheme “defrauded federal healthcare programs” of millions of dollars that was paid out improperly for the drug, Subsys, which is approved for use only in cancer patients with breakthrough pain. Federal prosecutors allege that Pearlman “personally profited” from the scheme through inflated quarterly bonuses he received that were based, in large part, on the sales results of the employees he managed. Pearlman, who is no longer employed by Insys, could not be reached for comment Thursday.

Fines & Sanctions

Podiatrist Pleads Guilty To Submitting False Medicare Claims

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A Stamford-based podiatrist faces hefty fines and prison time after she pleaded guilty this week to submitting fraudulent Medicare claims.

Amira Mantoura pleaded guilty Monday in Hartford federal court to one count of making a false statement to Medicare after she billed the government program for foot surgeries when she merely clipped patients’ toenails, according to Deirdre M. Daly, U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut. Mantoura, 53, lives in Greenwich and has a practice at 95 Morgan St., Stamford. In her guilty plea, she admitted that she submitted false claims to not only Medicare, but Medicaid and private insurance companies as well, Daly said. Reached by phone at her practice Tuesday, Mantoura declined to comment. According to court documents, between January 2009 and August 2013, Mantoura “knowingly submitted materially false claims” seeking payment for nail avulsions, which are surgical treatments for ingrown toenails.