A podiatrist from Bridgeport was convicted of health care fraud Friday by a federal jury.
BRIAN CARPENTER
Brian Carpenter, 56, was found guilty on one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and six more counts of health care fraud, according to federal court records.
Federal prosecutors say Carpenter and Jerry Lee Hawrylak, 69, of Lake Worth took part in a scheme to fraudulently bill TRICARE — the health care program for U.S. service members and their families.
“Carpenter… signed prescriptions for compounded pain and scar creams for TRICARE beneficiaries to whom he never spoke and whom he never examined or treated. Jerry Lee Hawrylak … recruited Carpenter to sign the prescriptions and recruited TRICARE beneficiaries to accept the medically unnecessary creams. From November 2014 to January 2017, Carpenter and Hawrylak caused the Fort Worth-based pharmacy involved in the conspiracy to fraudulently bill TRICARE approximately $8.5 million for these creams,” the U.S. Department of Justice said in a news release Friday afternoon.
Sentencing for both men has been set for Aug. 23, and they face a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison on each count.
Carpenter was arrested along with 57 other medical professionals across four federal districts in Texas in 2019 for their alleged involvement in Medicare fraud schemes and “networks of ‘pill mill’ clinics” that resulted in $66 million in losses and 6.2 million pills, according to a U.S. DOJ press release at the time of the arrest.
A federal grand jury in 2019 returned an indictment that alleges in late 2014, Carpenter and Hawrylak unlawfully submitted fraudulent claims to federal health care benefit programs for members of the armed forces. The DOJ argued that Carpenter and Hawrylak billed more than $8.4 million in false and fraudulent claims to TRICARE for compound medications and received more than $1 million in kickbacks.
A Bridgeport High School grad and former Bridgeport School Board member, Carpenter was living in Wise County but practicing at the University of North Texas Health Science Campus Health Pavilion in Fort Worth when federal investigators began looking into his role in the possible fraud scheme.
Carpenter was once the only foot-and-ankle specialist in Wise County. He was also a past president of the Texas Podiatric Medicine Association and director of Podiatric Residence Training at John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth. He also served as an adjunct instructor for several universities as far away as New York and at home here in Texas.
Former Gov. Rick Perry appointed him to the Texas State Board of Podiatric Medical Examiners in 2011.
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