Six Charged in $20 Million Medicare, Medicare Fraud Scheme Involving NJ Pharmacy

Six people have been charged in connection with an alleged scheme to defraud Medicare and Medicaid involving a doctor and other medical professionals issuing medically unnecessary prescriptions to a pharmacist in exchange for cash kickbacks. The defendants allegedly caused a loss of about $20,684,264 to Medicare and Medicaid.

The following individuals were charged by Information in the District of New Jersey on July 7, 2026 and appeared before Judge Karen M. Williams in federal district court in Camden in connection with the scheme:

* Sherif Elmasri, 45, of Morganville, New Jersey, pled guilty to a two-count Information charging him with conspiring to commit health care fraud and to violate the Anti-Kickback Statute on June 16, 2025.

* Boris Veysman, 48, of Freehold, New Jersey, pled guilty to a two-count Information charging him with conspiring to commit health care fraud and unlawfully distribute controlled substances on June 17, 2025.

* Stephanie Cupo, 45, of South Plainfield, New Jersey, pled guilty to an Information charging her with conspiring to make false statements relating to health care matters and to use a Drug Enforcement Administration registration number issued to another person on January 7, 2026.

* Nikki Steidle, 53, of Toms River, New Jersey, pled guilty to an Information charging her with conspiring to defraud the United States, solicit and receive kickbacks, offer and pay kickbacks, and unlawfully distribute controlled substances on June 30, 2026.

* Janet Tadros, 59, of Union City, New Jersey, pled guilty to a two-count Information charging her with conspiring to commit health care fraud and to violate the Anti-Kickback statute on July 7, 2026.

Additionally, Ashlee Maixner, 39, of Lakehurst, New Jersey, was charged by indictment with conspiracy to defraud the United States, solicit and receive kickbacks, offer and pay kickbacks, unlawfully distribute controlled substances, and two counts of soliciting and receiving a kickback. Maixner was arraigned before Magistrate Judge André M. Espinosa in Newark on June 25, 2026, and pled not guilty.

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I lived in FL for several years on an island near the entrance to Tampa Bay. One of my neighbors, unbeknownst to me, was a physician who lived in a moderately expensive home near the center of the island. It always had a conspicuous array of exotic cars in the drive and on the street out in front that cumulatively were 2-3 times the value of the home.

One day, a neighbor who lived directly across the street from the physician came out as I am walking the dog past his house and asked, “DID YOU SEE?” and I had no idea what it was. A few hours earlier, the FBI and the Pinellas County Sheriff had raided the guy’s home and arrested him on this kind of fraud. He was writing prescriptions for the most unusual things - topical cancer treatments (?), an assortment of rare and expensive drug therapies that cost Medicare/Medicaid $12-15k/month/patient. These formulary drugs were always prepared at the same obscure pharmacy.

As it turned out the pharmacy was kicking back 50% of its profit on each prescription to the MD.

The precise details of how he got caught were in the indictment. Apparently, he went to a Bay Area BMW dealership to purchase a new car and wrote a check for $1000 as a down payment on a $90k car. He called the pharmacy and asked the accountant there to wire $89k to the dealership to complete the purchase. One hour later, the payment had not arrived, so the MD got on the phone and reamed out the accountant severely. The accountant hangs up and goes directly to the US Attorney’s office in Tampa and blows the whistle.

He was sentenced to 2 years in prison after pleading, ended up serving just shy of 1 year after testifying against the owners of the Pharmacy. He forfeited 5 homes in the Tampa area, scores of cars, his medical license and had a $5M restitution order.

“medically unnecessary” is a topic I have discussed on FR for over 10 years, since before Trump 1.

Example I gave many years ago. One Saturday evening I went to the emergency room of St Joseph Emory Hospital, Sandy Springs GA (Atlanta Post Office) with a “bad cold”. The emergency room nurse & doctor diagnosed pneumonia and gave me a shot.

Then I sat in the emergency area for 4 hours til 1 minute after midnight. Then they admitted as an inpatient. If they had admitted me before midnight, they could not have billed as much as they were able to after midnight. It was “gaming the system” and not a medical decision.

Early Sunday morning a string of doctors stuck their head in the door. None of them asked me a single question other than a casual “Good morning. How are you?”

The first doctor told me “You have shingles.” He had not seen me, had not talked with me, did not know anythng other than on the one sheet of paper infront of him. But he knew my age and knew the odds are with him saying I had shingles.

Why was he first? Because if I had shingles every doctor that followed him after that could bill at a higher rate.

So then the stream of specialists followed, each giving me a different diagnosed disease.

They ordered lab tests and radiology. They saw a dirty spot at the bottom of my right lung. I explained that I had done chimney sweep and other dirty jobs 45 years earlier and the dirt caused me no trouble since, not in the army, not in knocking door to door 6 days a week, often 12 hours a day. But they speculated it might be cancer. They were required by Medicare to do and bill for useless tests before they could do the invasive test necessary to determine if it was cancer.

When they did the invasive test, they punctured my lung and my lung collapsed.

So I was in the hospital a couple weeks for what could have been one shot in the emergency room as outpatient treatment.

“Medically unnecessary” is extremely common. I saw it all the time in Medicaid billing. A Medicaid patient would have a real booboo. The treatment would be for that booboo ... and for a zillion other real and imagined “issues” that were not causing the patient any problem and in most cases were not known to the patient.

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