Although Mike Trinkley forwarded a good legal reference (18 U.S.C. 1001), a
more appropriate one relative to the potentially illegal activities outlined
in the survey I distributed is the False Claims Act (31 U.S.C. §§
3729-3733).  According to the very helpful folks at Taxpayers Against Fraud
<http://www.taf.org>, the types of activities covered under the False Claims
Act include:
 
"The primary activities that constitute violations under the False Claims
Act are: (1) knowingly presenting (or causing to be presented) to the
Federal Government a false or fraudulent claim for payment; (2) knowingly
using (or causing to be used) a false record or statement to get a claim
paid by the Federal Government; (3) conspiring with others to get a false or
fraudulent claim paid by the Federal Government; and (4) knowingly using (or
causing to be used) a false record or statement to conceal, avoid, or
decrease an obligation to pay money or transmit property to the Federal
Government.
 
In general, the False Claims Act covers fraud involving any federally funded
contract or program, with the exception of tax fraud. While the majority of
qui tam actions to date have involved government contracts (most notably,
Department of Defense contracts), health care fraud is now the biggest
target of qui tam suits.
 
A broad array of scenarios can constitute False Claims Act violations. Some
examples include the following: a contractor falsifies test results or other
information regarding the quality or cost of products it sells to the
Government; a health care provider bills Medicare and Medicaid for services
that were not provided or were unnecessary; or a grant recipient charges the
Government for costs not related to the grant."
 
This act, known alternately as the "Lincoln Law" or the "Whistleblower Law"
entitles "relators" ("A private plaintiff under the False Claims Act is
known as a relator") -- in many cases former employees of federal
contractors who engage in fraud -- to recover a portion of monies recovered
on behalf of the US government if the government recovers money from the a
defendant as a result of the FCA lawsuit (known as "qui tam"; again,
according to Taxpayers Against Fraud, "Qui tam is the technical legal term
for the unique mechanism in the federal False Claims Act that allows persons
and entities with evidence of fraud against federal programs or contracts to
sue the wrongdoer on behalf of the Government.")
 
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David S. Rotenstein, Ph.D., RPA
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
WWW: http://www.city-net.com/~davidsr/crm.htm
E-Mail: [log in to unmask]
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