LOS ANGELES — A Los Angeles County medical lab owner was sentenced Tuesday to nine years behind bars for her role in a $369 million fraud scheme that exploited the COVID-19 pandemic and resulted in false billings and theft from federal programs. Lourdes Navarro, 66, of Glendale , pleaded guilty two years ago to a charge of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and wire fraud, according to the U.S.
Attorney’s Office. Navarro ran Baldwin Park-based Matias Clinical Laboratory Inc., also known as Health Care Providers Laboratory, which she ran with husband Imran Shams.
The lab performed COVID-19 screening tests for nursing homes and other facilities with vulnerable elderly populations, as well as primary and secondary schools, prosecutors said. To increase reimbursements for the lab, Navarro fraudulently added claims for respiratory pathogen panel tests even though providers and facility administrators did not want or need them, according to her plea agreement filed in Los Angeles federal court. The couple submitted phony claims to Medicare, the HRSA’s COVID-19 Uninsured Program, and an insurance company for unnecessary respiratory pathogen panel testing procured through illegal kickbacks and bribes, prosecutors said.
In addition to her prison penalty, Navarro was ordered to forfeit $11.6 million in funds the government previously seized from three bank accounts. The total amount seized and forfeited from Navarro and Shams is $14.
51 million. Navarro also was ordered to pay.