The Investigative Journal’s daily review of federal enforcement actions, drawn from Justice Department press releases, court filings, and other public records. Every item below links to the underlying government record.
The Justice Department closed out a heavy two-day stretch of enforcement activity on September 8 and 9 with one of the largest health care fraud sentences in the history of the Central District of California, the extradition of a Russian national accused of running credential-harvesting infrastructure for a transnational bank fraud operation, and joint civil rights findings against U.C. Berkeley’s law school. Alongside those headline actions, department components announced convictions and sentencings in investor fraud, tax fraud, and child exploitation cases, while recent filings in Massachusetts and three swing states signal continued pressure on health care fraud networks and election-related offenses. Here is what the public record shows.
Thirty years for a $270 million Medi-Cal drug reimbursement scheme
Paul Richard Randall, 67, of Orange, California, was sentenced September 9 to 30 years in federal prison for orchestrating a scheme that submitted nearly $270 million in fraudulent claims to Medi-Cal, California’s Medicaid program, over just 11 months, according to the Justice Department. Randall was also ordered to pay $178,746,556 in restitution — the amount Medi-Cal actually paid out on the false claims between May 2022 and April 2023. The department said the sentence is among the highest ever imposed for health care fraud in the Central District of California.
Court documents indicate Randall and his co-conspirators — pharmacist Kyrollos Mekail, 38, and nurse practitioner Patricia Anderson, 59 — exploited Medi-Cal’s temporary suspension of prior-authorization requirements during the program’s transition to a new prescription drug payment system. Billing through Monte Vista Pharmacy, the scheme charged Medi-Cal thousands of dollars per prescription for high-reimbursing generic drugs, including approximately $13,424 for a single prescription of meloxicam, a generic anti-inflammatory that typically retails for $5 to $25 for a 30-day supply. Filings indicate the medications were medically unnecessary, frequently never dispensed, and procured through illegal kickbacks — including payments to Anderson to sign pre-filled prescriptions for patients she never met.
“Paul Randall exploited a temporary change in Medi-Cal’s prescription drug reimbursement system to steal millions of hard-earned taxpayer dollars meant to help California’s most vulnerable residents,” said Assistant Attorney General Colin M. McDonald of the National Fraud Enforcement Division. The case is significant beyond its dollar figure: it documents how quickly organized fraud operators moved to exploit a single policy gap — a suspended prior-authorization control — during a state payment system transition.
Russian web developer extradited in bank account takeover conspiracy
Sergei Anatolyevich Filimonov, 36, a Russian national, was arraigned in the Northern District of Georgia after extradition from the Republic of Georgia on charges tied to a transnational account takeover operation, the department announced September 8. A federal grand jury indicted Filimonov in November 2025 on counts including bank and wire fraud conspiracy, access device fraud, and aggravated identity theft. If convicted on all counts, he faces a statutory maximum of 175 years.
The indictment alleges the conspirators built spoofed domains mimicking federally insured banks, then purchased sponsored search-engine links to steer customers to the fake login pages — harvesting credentials used to initiate unauthorized wire transfers. Filimonov allegedly developed and maintained the operation’s backend infrastructure, including databases holding more than 5,000 stolen login credentials; the department previously seized the domain web3adspanels.org, which filings describe as a backend server for harvested credentials. Estonian and Georgian authorities assisted the FBI Atlanta investigation.
The scale of the underlying problem is notable: the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center has logged more than 5,100 bank account takeover complaints since January 2025, with reported losses exceeding $262 million. An indictment is merely an allegation, and Filimonov is presumed innocent unless proven guilty.
DOJ and Education Department issue Title VI findings against Berkeley Law
In the week’s most consequential civil action, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and the Department of Education announced joint investigative findings September 9 that U.C. Berkeley School of Law discriminates against white and Asian applicants in admissions, in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and the Supreme Court’s 2023 Students for Fair Admissions decision.
According to the departments’ findings letter, Berkeley Law’s post-SFFA application asked applicants to specify racial identity so admitted students could be grouped by “primary identity,” and the government’s statistical analysis of 2024-2025 admissions data found that half of admitted Black applicants had LSAT scores below 95 percent of admitted white applicants, with Black applicants in 2025 showing 5.8 times higher odds of admission than what the department described as comparable white applicants. TIJ has not independently verified the department’s statistical analysis, and the findings are agency determinations — not a court judgment. The department said it will pursue settlement negotiations and, failing that, litigation. The university’s response is not reflected in the department’s release; TIJ will report Berkeley’s answer when it is filed or published.
Virginia man convicted of defrauding investors, then the bankruptcy court
A federal jury in Alexandria convicted Jihoon Park, 52, of Chantilly, Virginia, on three counts of wire fraud and two counts of bankruptcy fraud, the department said September 8. According to evidence presented at trial, Park leveraged personal relationships and a former affiliation with a large national financial institution to persuade members of his community to entrust him with retirement savings, promising safe, high-yield investments — then transferred more than $2.5 million to himself, buying a house and cryptocurrency.
The bankruptcy counts add a second layer: after one victim sued, filings indicate Park moved assets to his wife, concealed millions in cryptocurrency, and declared to the bankruptcy court that he held just $0.34 in financial assets. Sentencing is set for December 10. The case is a reminder that affinity fraud — schemes exploiting trust within a community — remains among the most common vectors for retail investment loss.
Maryland woman sentenced in $1.1 million trust-based tax refund fraud
Kendra Scarborough of Oxon Hill, Maryland, received 12 months and one day in prison for filing false tax returns in the names of purported trusts she controlled, according to a September 9 release. Court records indicate the three returns, filed between December 2019 and March 2020, sought more than $1.1 million in refunds; the IRS actually issued $412,000, which Scarborough spent in part on her home mortgage. She pleaded guilty to theft of government funds and was ordered to pay $410,117 in restitution.
The case, prosecuted by the department’s new National Fraud Enforcement Division, reflects a persistent pattern IRS Criminal Investigation has flagged for years: fabricated trust entities used to claim large refunds — a scheme type that recurs in promoter-driven fraud across the country.
Ohio missionary pleads guilty to child exploitation in Haiti
Jeriah Mast, 45, of Millersburg, Ohio, entered a guilty plea September 8 to two counts of engaging in illicit sexual conduct with minors in Haiti, the department announced. According to court documents, Mast traveled repeatedly to Haiti between 2002 and 2019, including with the organization Christian Aid Ministries, and flight records obtained by investigators show more than 30 U.S.-to-Haiti flights over that period. Sentencing is set for December 15.
The prosecution, brought under the extraterritorial provisions federal law provides for sex crimes against minors abroad, was investigated by Homeland Security Investigations with assistance from the Holmes County Sheriff’s Office as part of Project Safe Childhood. The case underscores federal jurisdiction over U.S. citizens who exploit children overseas — including under cover of humanitarian or religious work.
New indictment in the $1.3 billion “Operation Gold Rush” fraud network
A federal grand jury in Massachusetts indicted Erekle Gugava, 33, on a money laundering conspiracy charge connected to what the department calls the largest health care fraud case it has ever prosecuted, per a September 4 release. Prosecutors allege Gugava, described in the release as residing in the U.S. illegally after arriving from the country of Georgia, served as a launderer for a Russia-based transnational organization uncovered by Operation Gold Rush.
The indictment alleges that during Gugava’s five-month purported ownership of ND Medical Solutions LLC, a Pennsylvania durable medical equipment company, the firm submitted at least $1.3 billion in fraudulent claims to Medicare and private insurers — which paid approximately $6.5 million before the flow was cut off. Filings indicate the claims relied on stolen identities of elderly and disabled Americans, many of whom alerted Medicare after receiving benefit statements for equipment they never received from doctors they never saw. Gugava faces up to 20 years if convicted; the charge is an allegation and he is presumed innocent.
Election integrity: five charged across three states; primaries monitored
Rounding out the period, the department announced charges September 4 against five individuals in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Wisconsin related to alleged illegal voting or fraudulent registration in the 2022 or 2024 elections. Those named include Marisol Guzman, 50, of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, charged with voting as an alien in 2024; her husband Thomas Holtzman, 68, a U.S. citizen charged with aiding and abetting false citizenship claims; and Katya Rodriguez, 30, of Harrisburg, charged with fraudulent registration and voting as an alien. Attorney General Todd Blanche called election fraud “a serious crime” that the department has a duty to treat as such. All charges are allegations.
The Civil Rights Division also deployed election monitors to primary polling sites in Manchester and Nashua, New Hampshire on September 8 and Pawtucket, Rhode Island on September 9 — routine deployments the department frames as ballot-integrity enforcement ahead of the midterm cycle.
On TIJ’s radar
Three threads from this week’s actions warrant deeper reporting. First, the Gold Rush network: the gap between $1.3 billion billed and $6.5 million paid suggests payment-integrity screens caught most of the flood — but records do not yet show who opened the door for ND Medical’s Medicare enrollment, or how many shell DME companies in the network remain uncharged. Second, the Filimonov indictment’s reference to purchased sponsored search links raises a question filings leave open: which ad platforms sold placement to spoofed bank domains, and what screening failed. Third, the Randall sentence quantifies the cost of a single suspended control during Medi-Cal’s payment transition; whether other operators exploited the same window — and what the state’s total exposure was — remains unreported. TIJ will pursue all three.
Editorial note: Every factual claim above is drawn from the linked Justice Department releases and court records they describe. Criminal charges are allegations, and all defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty; agency civil findings are not court judgments. The Investigative Journal invites counsel for any person or institution named here to submit responses or corrections, which will be appended to this article.