Following eight years of litigation, an Orange County Superior Court docket decide threw out a significant insurance coverage fraud case that additionally alleged involuntary manslaughter stemming from an toddler’s dying.
All prices of involuntary manslaughter and felony insurance coverage fraud-related counts have been dismissed towards Kareem Ahmed, Andrew Robert Jarminski and Michael Rudolph, in response to courtroom information.
The case was first filed in 2014 and has had a number of authorized setbacks over time, most lately in 2019 when Orange County Superior Court docket Decide Sheila Hanson dominated that prosecutors violated attorney-client privilege.
Since that ruling, the attorneys have been working by means of what proof was not tainted and will nonetheless be used within the case.
“We’re grateful for the eye that Decide Hanson gave to the problem, and, clearly, we’re happy with the end result,” Ahmed’s lawyer, Benjamin Gluck, instructed Metropolis Information Service.
“Other than the procedural errors on this case, on the underlying points we contend Mr. Ahmed by no means did something flawed.”
In 2019, Hanson discovered that Deputy District Lawyer Shaddi Kamiabipour didn’t intend to invade the attorney-client privilege, however District Lawyer Investigator Fred Nichols was recused.
Kamiabipour didn’t instantly reply to messages.
The case has had a number of points alongside the way in which.
In March 2016, the Fourth District Court docket of Attraction largely dismantled an indictment towards a number of physicians, pharmacists and different medical professionals concerned in what prosecutors alleged was a kickback scheme.
The justices at the moment didn’t touch upon the deserves of the case, however famous a number of technical errors.
As an alternative of returning to a grand jury to hunt new indictments, prosecutors filed new circumstances as an alternative. Due to that prosecutors shouldn’t have the chance to refile the case anymore, Gluck mentioned.
Ahmed, who was a significant booster of then-President Barack Obama’s re-election marketing campaign, was accused of masterminding the scheme, which prosecutors mentioned resulted in additional than $200 million in losses.
Prosecutors accused Ahmed of orchestrating a scheme to create a pain-relief cream and provide kickbacks to physicians and chiropractors to dispense it whereas additionally defrauding insurance coverage firms with staff’ compensation claims.
Priscilla Lujan, a affected person prescribed the cream, sued Jarminski in Los Angeles County in 2013 alleging the cream got here with out customary warnings, which led her to show the ointment to her 5-month-old son, who died after ingesting it whereas she used her fingers as a pacifier, Lujan’s lawyer, Shawn McCann, mentioned.
