Semper Fi-duciary crimes!

In 2014, a Tennessee medical clinic initiated a medical fraud conspiracy that recruited hundreds of Camp Pendleton Marines to act as sham patients for stupidly expensive and totally unnecessary compound pharmacy prescriptions in exchange for a $300 monthly kickback. TRICARE, the government-sponsored military health care system, was bilked by the conspiracy’s masterminds of $65 million in a single year. When the Feds finally caught up to the couple running the clinic, they came down hard, demanding their money back and sending one of them to prison for 10 years. The Marines who served as recruiters also went to prison. But the kickback recipients? The government refuses to say. And retired Marine and defense attorney Larry Bartolo told the press not to hold its breath for any forthcoming revelations, saying, “The Department of Justice is not going to prosecute those service members. You know our motto: The Few. The Poor. The Marines. Semper Fidelis means we take care of each other. Sometimes, that requires heroic sacrifice. Sometimes, it requires a little wheeling and dealing. When I’m out there in the field with my fellow Marines, I don’t want to have to worry about whether they’re worried about paying the bills back home, you know? I want them focused on the task at hand. The government understands that. Not well enough to pay them properly, but still.”