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Published: May 10, 2022, 4:23 p.m.

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The Golden Taxi  

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https://zalma.com/blog 

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Mischa came to Houston in 1990 directly from the old Soviet Union. His  dream was to be a cowboy. He became a cab driver.  Mischa picked up the English language quickly and memorized the  convoluted streets of Houston. Within a year of his arrival, he could  find with ease any hotel, restaurant or bar in the overgrown small town  that was Houston, Texas.  Mischa made a reasonable living driving a cab, making the  forty-five-minute run in from the airport at least three times a day. He  bought a small three bedroom house outside Houston and was building his  way toward the American dream. Mischa was not a criminal. He drove his  cab twelve hours a day, six days a week to support himself and his young  wife.

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Mischa\\u2019s life changed when the dispatcher called him to the home of  Sophie Mendelson. Sophie, an eighty-year-old Medicare patient, needed a  ride to her doctor\\u2019s office, four miles from her home.  Upon arrival at the doctor\\u2019s office Sophie gave Mischa the information  necessary to bill Medicare direct for his services. He complied and  within weeks received a check from the US Treasury. It seemed all that  Medicare required before it sent a check was information concerning the  patient, a Medicare number, and whatever he wanted for the miles driven.  

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Mischa satisfied Medicare if the fare reasonably related to the amount  of miles he claimed.  Mischa was an intelligent man. He grew up in the Soviet Union, so he had  no respect for government. In fact, as a child and as an adult living  in the Soviet Union, he learned that the only way to survive was to  deceive the ever-present government.  He was surprised to learn how unlike the Soviet government was the U.S.  government. Rather than expecting deceit from its citizens, the U.S.  government seemed to believe everything told to it by its residents.  T

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he ride he gave Sophie Mendelson gave Mischa a plan to obtain a  fortune. Mischa advised his dispatcher that he would volunteer to take  all the Medicare, Medicaid, and welfare patient rides called into his  cab. Since the other drivers did not like to wait for the payments from  the government, Mischa received all of the calls. Within a month he had  created a ledger containing 100 names, addresses and Medicare numbers.

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With a calculator, a tax rate table and a pad of receipts, Mischa  started on his journey to earn his first million dollars. He created  receipts for five doctor visits for every one he actually drove. Mischa  extended the distance to each doctor by a factor of three. In his first  year he collected more than a million dollars from the United States,  state and county governments. The next year his collections (since his  number of welfare and Medicare recipients had increased in his ledger)  had gone to two million dollars.  

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Mischa sold his three bedroom house and bought a 500-acre ranch with a  four thousand square foot, six bedroom ranch house and stables. He began  to live his dream of being a cowboy. Mischa bought 500 head of long  horn steers and three quarter horses.

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ZALMA OPINION  

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When a person is convicted of insurance fraud there is no deterrence  shown if the only punishment is to allow the criminal to be placed on  probation and allow him or her to keep the fruits of the crime. Justice  should never include allowing someone like Mischa to profit from the  crime.

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