Legitimate defense
Since everyone is giving thoughts on Dr Schena's trial. Here's my thoughts on the charges. Of course this is IMHO:
1. One Count - Conspiracy to Commit Health Care Fraud and Wire Fraud - I believe he's cooked here. There will be 4 people testifying that they are guilty and committed the crime over state lines with Dr Schena at the helm. That's powerful. All things from using the medical ID's without seeing patients while tacking on unnecessary full allergy panels at 5K a pop to a Covid test that gave false positives due to it being a antibody test. Lots of ways the DOJ can attack here with evidence and testimony to back it up.
2. 2 Counts Health Care Fraud - See above. I believe this will come down to what the 4 people testify to. You have to prove there was intent, so if they get up and say yes we did this together to try and bilk the system, then it's game over. Pickles better get his top hat and cane ready because he's going to have to dance more than he's ever done.
3. One count - Conspiracy to Pay Illegal Kickbacks - Again the power is in the testimony of the other 4. If they get up there and say they took insurance payments to steer patients to take those tests that's game over too. The commission defense will not fly here. There are tight rules about this. I don't see how this can be defended if the other 4 pled guilty and took the money.
4. One Count - Payment of Illegal Kickbacks - This should be simple to prove backed up by paperwork, the flow of the money and the admission of the "sham" contracts. And of course Paul Haje getting up on the stand and admitting he help set it up and saw the payments through.
5. 3 counts - Securities Fraud - There's a lot going on here.
First there might be a little wiggle room on the "We have a test" even though at the time there was no way they did. Silicon Valley is big on promoting BS before it's a product (see Software as an example) I'm not big on the Strawberry pie defense, and it looks like "Medical Expert No1" said it was total BS, but I think the jury might see that there was intent/full belief that they were going to make a test so that might raise doubt for promotion purposes. Having the test not cut FDA mustard and still promoting it is another thing entirely.
Second is the SEC reporting. They are dead to rights on this. Sending letters to the shareholders and continuing to back it up with the "we reiterate Q1 for financials" while shareholders repeatedly asked valid questions will come back to bite them big. They just need to show that shareholder letter and call the auditing company to the stand to say how they were ghosted even as they brought the shareholder complaints to their attention. There was no way in hell those SEC Financials were coming out. Dr Schena knew it.
The third is the BS Press Releases. This will certainly fall under "Misleading" Trying to shade a positive light on looking up Gov bids on a website, then spinning it to make it look like they sought the company out for their products/services is a no no. That will be easy to show. You can also throw in all the Nasdaq BS and we got 50,000 requests for the test too. That's all going to help paint the "Misleading" shareholders picture. All the releases about they are increasing to $2 Million billing a week will not help either. It was all BS and it will be easy to prove. From flat out lies, to very misleading PRs.
I know there's more to it here, but that's a brief summary. For the statement that there's "errors" in the complaints that might be true but just for little things that don't have anything to do with the crimes committed. If things like the outstanding share count was incorrectly listed in the complaint, the DOJ will stipulate to any of those errors and get to the real crimes listed above.
So I think MAYBE a count might get dropped at best. That would still leave like 100 Years and 20 Million Max fines. Since he did not take responsibility and was the head of the conspiracy I could see the judge giving out more than 10 years here.
But that's why there's a trial coming. If there's a defense here that overrides the evidence and the testimony I'm sitting on the edge of my seat to see what it could possibly be.
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