A physician who helped operators of a crooked medical clinic defraud the federal government was put on probation for three years Monday by U.S. District Judge William M. Skretny.
Dr. Mikhail Strutsovskiy, 37, of Amherst, apologized for taking part in a scam involving the fraudulent, and now defunct, All Care medical clinics in Amherst and Kenmore.
In addition to the probation sentence, Skretny ordered Strutsovskiy to reimburse $131,138 to the Medicare system, Assistant U.S. Attorney John E. Rogowski said.
In the years 2003 and 2004, the prosecutor said, Strutsovskiy helped the All Care clinics cheat the government by signing numerous phony documents certifying that he had provided treatment to patients.
Strutsovskiy never actually saw some of the patients, and at times was hundreds of miles away when the clinics claimed to have treated the patients, Rogowski said.
Stopping short of sending Strutsovskiy to prison, Skretny noted that the criminal case has already cost the doctor a $200,000-a-year job with a Geneva hospital and may cost him his medical license.
Two other defendants who ran the clinics -- Mikhail Solovey, also known as Robert Stein, and Marina Kats -- have already served prison time in the case.
Authorities said the clinics cheated government programs out of more than $440,000.
Strutsovskiy pleaded guilty to a felony charge of filing a false statement relating to health care.
e-mail: dherbeck@buffnews.com
