Health Care Fraud

A federal jury convicted a retired Eastern Shore cardiologist Tuesday of health care fraud and related charges for placing unnecessary coronary stents in the arteries of dozens of patients, then billing private and public insurers hundreds of thousands of dollars for the procedures. John R. McLean, 59, who surrendered his medical privileges at Peninsula Regional Medical Center in 2007 after a hospital investigation, faces a maximum of 35 years in prison at his sentencing, scheduled for Nov. 10, according to the Maryland U.S. attorney's office.

A s the century's sleazy first decade coasted to a finish, medicine was perhaps the only profession to emerge unslimed. Wall Street and bond raters caused 10 percent unemployment. Businesses cooked books. Journalists fabricated. Priests abused. Intelligence analysts found fantasy nukes. But doctors, again near the top of last year's Gallup "honesty and ethics" poll, may be prepping for their own Enron moment. Allegations that hundreds of patients at St. Joseph Medical Center received what might have been unneeded heart stents would, if true, combine Bernard Madoff-style fraud with Toyota-style injury.

WEATHER Today's forecast calls for partly sunny skies with breezy conditions and a high temperature around 41 degrees. It is expected to be partly cloudy tonight with a low temperature around 27 degrees. TRAFFIC Check our interactive traffic map for this morning's issues as you plan your commute. FROM LAST NIGHT... Scarlet fever identified at Baltimore elementary school : At least one student at George Washington Elementary in southwest Baltimore has been diagnosed with scarlet fever, according to the city health department.

Awards Basement Waterproofing Nationwide received the Better Business Bureau of Greater Maryland's Torch Award for Outstanding Ethics in the Marketplace for a second time. The 20-year-old Edgewood company first won the award in 1997. The Maryland Psychological Association presented Catonsville-based Erickson Retirement Communities with its Psychologically Healthy Workplace Award. American Bus Sales & Service of Annapolis was selected as the 2007 Dealer of the Year by Thomas Built Buses Inc., a school bus manufacturer owned by Daimler AG. Spartan Chemical Co. presented certificates of achievement in sales to Garry Ebling, Kurt Schnitzer and Chris Roe of FPC Distribution Inc., based in Elkridge, and Larry Johnson of Landover-based S. Freedman & Sons Inc. Centric Business Systems of Owings Mills was named an Elite Dealer by Office Dealer magazine.

WASHINGTON - President Bush highlighted his administration's homeland security efforts yesterday and asked Congress for more law enforcement powers to fight terrorists. "The best way to protect the American people is to stay on the offensive ... at home and to stay on the offensive overseas," he said. "And that is what this country is doing." In a speech at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va., the president said law enforcement agencies need the same tools to combat terrorism they use to fight embezzlers or drug traffickers.

Laboratory Corp. of America has agreed to pay $187 million in civil and criminal penalties to settle federal charges that it billed Medicare and other programs for unnecessary blood tests, federal officials said yesterday.The settlement was the biggest in a half-dozen cases resulting from a four-year investigation that involved most of the major clinical laboratories. The settlements totaled $479 million, including yesterday's agreement.Laboratory Corp. will pay $182 million to settle civil lawsuits involving unnecessary billing to Medicare, to Medicaid and to several other public agencies.

WASHINGTON - -A landmark $2.3 billion health care fraud settlement announced Wednesday involving Pfizer Inc. has put the pharmaceutical industry on notice that its widespread and potentially criminal behavior in promoting drugs for unauthorized uses won't be tolerated by the Obama administration, government officials and legal experts said. But, they added, some companies will continue to risk prosecution for such questionable practices because the fines and penalties pale in comparison to the extraordinary profits that are being made on the widespread practice of marketing drugs for "off-label" uses that have not been approved by the federal government.

Katharine Jacobs Armentrout, a 51-year-old federal prosecutor who this year helped put one of Baltimore's most violent heroin dealers behind bars, was nominated by President Bush yesterday to fill the second of three vacancies on the U.S. District Court for Maryland.The nomination of Mrs. Armentrout, a prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Maryland since 1985 and a registered Republican, was recommended by Rep. Helen Delich Bentley, the senior Republican in Maryland's congressional delegation.

A phony psychologist who used falsified resumes to land high-paying jobs got his foot in the door again yesterday -- but this time it was a jail cell.Haroon R. Ansari, 36, was sentenced to 10 days in the Anne Arundel County Detention Center for violating his Maryland probation by using a phony resume to get an $87,000-a-year job as an executive with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Michigan."Perhaps a few days in the cooler will convince Mr. Ansari that we are serious when we talk about zero tolerance for health care fraud -- whatever form it might take," said Maryland Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr.Mr.

Katharine Jacobs Armentrout, a 51-year-old federal prosecutor who this year helped put one of Baltimore's most violent heroin dealers behind bars, was nominated by President Bush yesterday to fill the second of three vacancies on the U.S. District Court for Maryland.The nomination of Mrs. Armentrout, a prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Maryland since 1985 and a registered Republican, was recommended by Rep. Helen Delich Bentley, the senior Republican in Maryland's congressional delegation.