07/17/2025    David Secord, DPM

Inside the DOJ's Largest-ever Healthcare Takedown (Paul Kesselman, DPM)

I have a friend from college who is with the
Federal Prosecutor’s office in Fort Smith, AR.
About a decade ago, we were speaking about the
length of time it takes for someone’s feet to be
held to the fire after committing felonies. His
response was enlightening. The DOJ has only a
certain number of prosecutors and investigators
upon which to rely for building and (potentially)
litigating a case. He estimated that each case
might entail $500,000 in costs (and that was a
decade ago) and it is simply not possible for
every, single instance to make it into the
courtroom. There are not enough courts either.

The road you are forced to walk is to allow the
potential defendant to build up a large enough
number of offences that the Feds can approach and
offer a plea agreement to plead guilty to a
certain number of offences, pay a certain amount
in fines and surrender of assets and agree to
certain amount of time incarcerated.

If the defendant won’t go for the plea deal, the
quid pro quo is that they will prosecute on all
offences and make sure that the time incarcerated
is hefty. The only way this arm-twisting works is
with a top-heavy number of offences, which
requires a certain amount of time to accumulate.
Just as this reality is frustrating for the
taxpayers, so it is for the prosecutors. About
twenty years ago, I reported someone for Medicare
and Medicaid fraud. When the decision was made not
to prosecute, I made some calls and was on the
phone with a guy at the FBI. He admitted that he
would love to see the perp arrested, arraigned,
prosecuted and imprisoned, but as the amount he
stole from the taxpayer was slightly under $1
million, it wasn’t worth spending half a million
to retrieve a million and a few years in Federal
prison.

This man actually admitted that the perpetrator
was smart enough to steal just enough to stay off
target. I asked point blank if that was an
admission that crime pays. He responded that “…if
you are smart enough, yes.” Stunning. That is the
reality of life in these United States and the
Republic we embrace. This is not an imprimatur to
steal or fail to report theft or fraud. It is an
admission from those responsible for investigating
and prosecuting that the prosecutorial pie is only
just so large.

David Secord, DPM, McAllen, TX

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