CHICAGO – A man sentenced in an alleged fraudulent insurance billing scheme has sued the law firm that represented him, claiming his lawyers breached their standard of care.
Steven Paul filed a complaint on Sept. 24 in Cook County Circuit Court against Locke Lord LLP, William Cook, Brian Lewis and John Roberts alleging professional malpractice and breach of fiduciary duty.
According to the complaint, the plaintiff was sentenced to serve 20 months in a federal penitentiary in December 2017 and ordered to pay $1.1 million in restitution "as a result of his knowledge of, and failure to prevent, a fraudulent insurance-billing scheme perpetrated by chiropractic doctors with whom he practiced." He retained attorneys in 2009 from a firm that was later acquired by Locke Lord in a 2014 merger.
He alleges his attorneys advised him that "if he cooperated with the government's investigation and assisted in the government's investigation of the active participants in a scheme to bill Blue Cross/Blue Shield in amounts in excess of the fees properly compensable for services provided to their patients, that he would be rewarded with immunity from personal prosecution," the suit states.
He alleges as a result of the defendants' actions, he has been deprived of the opportunity to gain a grant of immunity from prosecution or deferred prosecution.
The plaintiff alleges the defendants failed to properly advise him concerning their negotiations with a U.S. attorney, failed to analyze the best routes to avoid prosecution, and improperly advised plaintiff to plead guilty without an adequate investigation of admissible evidence.
The plaintiff requests a trial by jury and seeks judgment against defendant in an amount of more than $1 million, and further relief. He is represented by attorney Alan J. Mandel in Skokie.
Cook County Circuit Court case number 18-L-010297