Doctor Pleads Guilty in Multi-Million Dollar Fraud Case

The owner of a cosmetic health care clinic located in Winnetka pleaded guilty Thursday to federal fraud charges for billing more than $3 million to Medicare for procedures that were not performed.

Pezham (Pez) Ebrahimzadeh, 50, a medical doctor who lives in Calabasas, owns the Winnetka Medical Group, which operates under the name Health & Beauty Clinic. According to a statement issued by the U.S. Attorney's office, Ebrahimzadeh used patients' and nonpatients' information to bill Medicare for procedures he did not, and in some cases could not, perform.

In some cases, the U.S. Attorney's office said, the doctor did not even have the equipment needed to perform the procedures, and on at least one occasion, Ebrahimzadeh admitted in court Thursday, he billed Medicare for performing these procedures, even though the purported patient was dead.

Between September 2008 and April 2012, Ebrahimzadeh submitted $7.5 million in bogus claims, and Medicare paid just over $3 million, the U.S. Attorney statement said.

United States District Judge George H. Wu, who is overseeing the case, is scheduled to sentence Ebrahimzadeh on May 20. The doctor faces a statutory maximum penalty of 10 years in federal prison. A plea agreement in which Ebrahimzadeh agreed to repay the money to Medicare contemplates a sentence of about four to five years; however, Wu will make the final determination as to the actual sentence, the statement said.