Petros Fichidzhyan, 44, of Granada Hills, California, has been sentenced to 12 years in prison and three years of supervised release for his role in a mulit-year scheme to defraud Medicare of more than $17 million.
Fichidzhyan committed the fraud through “sham” hospice companies and a home health company that he owned, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. The court found that he conspired with others to bill Medicare for hospice care that was not medically necessary and never provided.
“For years, the defendant, working with others, ran multiple sham hospice and home health care schemes, fraudulently billing Medicare over $17 million,” said Matthew R. Galeotti, head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, in a statement. “The defendant’s egregious scheme relied on layers of deception and sophisticated money laundering, and wasted millions in taxpayer money.”
Fichidzhyan and his accomplices used foreign nationals’ personal identifying information (PII) to conceal the fraudulent activity, including to open bank accounts, submit information to Medicare and sign property leases. They also misappropriated the names and PII of several doctors, two of whom were deceased, to fraudulently bill Medicare for purported hospice services, the Justice Department indicated.
Medicare paid the sham hospices nearly $16 million, of which Fichidzhyan received nearly $7 million, with more than $5.3 million laundered through a dozen shell and third-party bank accounts. Fichidzhyan also obtained more than $1 million in false claims paid to his home health care agency, which fraudulently used a doctor’s name and identifying information as having certified Medicare beneficiaries for home health care.
Fichidzhyan pleaded guilty to health care fraud, aggravated identity theft and money laundering in February 2025. At sentencing, he was also ordered to pay $17.1 million in restitution, and the court preliminarily ordered the forfeiture of a home bought with fraudulent proceeds. The government has seized more than $2.9 million from bank accounts associated with the fraud.
“Mr. Fichidzhyan lined his pockets at the expense of the American taxpayer,” said Akil Davis, the assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office, in a statement. “The level of fraud and exploitation committed by the defendant is astounding and I’m proud of our investigators and prosecutors who were able to detect his schemes and hold him accountable.”
