NEW YORK – The US Attorney's Office for the Central District of Illinois said this week that a grand jury has indicted an Illinois lab CEO on multiple counts of fraud for allegedly running an illegal COVID-19 testing scheme.
The indictment alleges that Aaron Rossi, CEO of Pekin, Illinois-based Reditus Laboratories, defrauded the state of Illinois as well as public and private insurance companies out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
According to the government, Rossi mischaracterized Reditus' COVID-19 testing services in order to receive payment for testing that was not actually performed, which led to his indictment on six counts of healthcare fraud.
Additionally, Rossi obtained a flat-rate contract with the state of Illinois for COVID-19 PCR testing but then billed both the state and patients' healthcare providers for testing, receiving double payments for the same COVID-19 test. The grand jury charged him with one count of mail fraud and four counts of wire fraud for these actions.
Rossi is currently in federal custody after pleading guilty to charges of filing false federal tax returns and taking funds from his former employer, Central Illinois Orthopedic Surgery in Bloomington, on Feb. 6. Sentencing for that case is scheduled for July 2, 2024. If convicted of the new fraud offenses, Rossi faces a maximum of 10 years in prison for each of the healthcare fraud charges and 20 years for each of the mail and wire fraud charges, as well as a possible $250,000 fine for each charge.