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Dr. Ribeiro’s office is located on 31st Avenue in Astoria.
By Forum Staff
Four attorneys and doctors have been indicted for their roles in defrauding businesses and insurance companies of more than $31 million through a trip-and-fall scheme, federal prosecutors recently announced.
New York-licensed attorneys George Constantine, 58, and Marc Elefant, 49; Andrew Dowd, 45, a New York-licensed orthopedic surgeon; and Sady Ribeiro, 51, an Astoria-based pain management doctor and surgeon, have been charged with conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, mail fraud, and wire fraud in connection with a scheme to obtain fraudulent insurance reimbursements and other compensation for fraudulent trip-and-fall accidents.
As alleged in the indictment, from in or about January 2013, up to and including in or about April 2018, the defendants engaged in an extensive fraud scheme through which the defendants defrauded businesses and insurance companies by staging trip-and-fall accidents and filing fraudulent lawsuits arising from those staged trip-and-fall accidents. In or about 2015, certain members of the fraud scheme split from the original conspiracy and formed a separate conspiracy that operated in substantially the same manner. Constantine was the primary attorney who filed fraudulent lawsuits in the original conspiracy starting in 2013. Elefant was the primary attorney who filed fraudulent lawsuits in the separate conspiracy, formed in or about 2015.
Fraud scheme participants recruited individuals to stage or falsely claim to have suffered trip-and-fall accidents at particular locations throughout the five boroughs. In the course of the fraud scheme, scheme participants recruited more than 400 patients. In the beginning, scheme participants would instruct Patients to claim they had tripped and fallen at a particular location, when in fact the Patients had suffered no such accidents. Eventually, at the direction of the lawyers who filed fraudulent lawsuits on behalf of the patients, scheme participants began to instruct patients to stage trip-and-fall accidents, i.e., to go to a location and deliberately fall. Common accident sites used during the fraud scheme included cellar doors, cracks in concrete sidewalks, and purported “potholes.”
After the staged trip-and-fall accidents, patients were referred to specific attorneys, including Constantine and Elefant, who would file personal injury lawsuits against the owners of the accident sites and/or insurance companies of the owners of the accident sites. The fraudulent lawsuits did not disclose that the patients had deliberately fallen at the accident sites or, in some cases, had not fallen at all. During the course of the fraud scheme, the defendants, together with others known and unknown, attempted to defraud the victims of more than $31,000,000.
The patients were also instructed to receive ongoing chiropractic and medical treatment from certain chiropractors and doctors, including Dowd and Ribeiro. The fraud scheme participants advised the patients that if they intended to continue with their lawsuits, they were required to undergo surgery. As an incentive to getting surgery, the recruited Patients were offered a payment of typically between $1,000 and $1,500 after they completed surgery. Patients generally were told to undergo two surgeries. Doctors in the fraud scheme, including Dowd and Ribeiro, were expected to, and in fact did, conduct these surgeries regardless of the legitimate medical needs of the patients.
