Four Medical Marketers Plead Guilty to Aiding in the Preparation of a False Tax Return

Sidney Cobos, Allan Lummer, Farshad Sassounian and Ashkan Kohanpour, medical marketers based in Los Angeles, California, pleaded guilty in United States District Court, Central District of California, on April 9, 2021, to one count each of aiding and assisting in the preparation of a false tax return. The four defendants will be sentenced at a future date. Our investigation found that they aided in the preparation and presentation of a false tax return to the Internal Revenue Service for Pharmacy Acquisition LLC. The defendants knew the tax return falsely claimed a deduction for expenses that were actually distributions made to them, as owners of Pharmacy Acquisition LLC. Further, our investigation found that Pharmacy Acquisition LLC provided medically unnecessary compounded drug prescriptions to Precise Compounding Pharmacy that were reimbursed by health care benefit programs, including Amtrak’s plan. As a result of the scheme, Amtrak’s insurance providers were fraudulently charged approximately $22,000.