Glendale Doctor Violetta Mailyan Sentenced to 15 Years for $45M Medicare Botox Fraud

Dr. Violetta Mailyan, 45, of Glendale, California, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for billing Medicare more than $45 million for Botox injections that were medically unnecessary and never provided, according to the Justice Department.

Mailyan owned and operated Healthy Way Medical Center, a clinic that claimed to provide beauty and cosmetic services. She was convicted of nine counts of wire fraud and three counts of obstruction of a criminal investigation of a health care offense.

How the billing worked

Medicare reimburses medical providers for Botox injections when necessary to treat documented cases of chronic migraines. That is a narrow category.

Prosecutors said Mailyan billed and received payments for thousands of injections that were never provided. According to prosecutors, she gave Botox only for cosmetic purposes, or to patients whose primary care physicians had not referred them for chronic migraine treatment.

Evidence presented at trial showed more than $19 million in claims involved Botox injections billed on days when her clinic was closed.

Billing from the beach

Prosecutors said Mailyan also billed for injections while she was on vacation in Mexico, Hawaii, Las Vegas, Pennsylvania and New York at various times throughout her fraud scheme.

In one example cited by prosecutors, she billed more than $200,000 for purportedly providing Botox services to patients in California when she was actually relaxing on the beach in Cabo.

Obstruction

The obstruction counts stem from what prosecutors say she did when she realized federal investigators were closing in. Prosecutors said she tried to hide her tracks by falsifying medical records and forging Medicare beneficiary signatures, including for a man who was in federal prison during the time Mailyan claimed to have provided treatment.

According to court documents, she then submitted those records to federal investigators to throw them off her trail and make it appear she had seen patients.

Where the money went

Prosecutors said Mailyan used the stolen money to purchase luxury goods, including a $12,000 17th-century crossbow, a $3,000 painting, five pieces of real estate in California and two Tesla vehicles, including a Cybertruck.

The court ordered her to forfeit more than $16 million worth of property, including real estate, personal items, securities and bank funds. She was also ordered to pay $32,904,049.41 in restitution to Medicare.

The judge's assessment

Upon sentencing Mailyan, the court said her fraud was "truly breathtaking in scope and shocking in its duration" and that her actions were "almost unbelievable in their brazenness."

The case is a plain example of how a program built on trust can be gamed: Medicare reimbursed a single clinic for more than $19 million in claims tied to days when the clinic was closed.