Doctor Pleads No Contest in Scam
NORTHRIDGE — A Northridge doctor pleaded no contest Wednesday to paying kickbacks to a medical referral firm for workers’ compensation patients, prosecutors said.
Gerald Paul, an orthopedist on the staff of Northridge Hospital Medical Center, is the third doctor to plead no contest in the scheme, Deputy City Atty. Mark Lambert said. Municipal Court Commissioner Barr Kohn ordered Paul to pay $8,100 in fines and placed him on six months probation.
Prosecutors allege the three doctors and a fourth awaiting trial wrote checks to the now-defunct referral service for patients, but the doctors had argued that the money was only for advertising.
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