[Download] "United States v. Pergler" by Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals * eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free

eBook details

Title: United States v. Pergler
Author : Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals
Release Date : January 04, 2000
Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
Pages : * pages
Size : 59 KB

Description

Argued September 11, 2000 Richard Pergler was convicted of mail fraud, money laundering, and submitting false claims in connection with a scheme to fraudulently bill Medicare for incontinence products. Before his indictment, Pergler employed attorney Paul DeMuro of Latham & Watkins to counsel him regarding Medicare coverage for some of the products he sold. After his indictment, Pergler employed two other Latham & Watkins attorneys, Herve Gouraige and Michael Leib, to defend him. In this direct appeal, Pergler contends that his trial counsel was forced to choose between vigorously representing him and protecting their colleague, DeMuro. This conflict of interest, Pergler argues, caused Gouraige and Leib to violate his Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel. Pergler urges us to vacate his convictions and remand the case for a new trial. We decline to do so. I. Background Pergler was convicted of selling non-reimbursable adult incontinence products, notably adult diapers and ""fempouches"" to Medicare patients, and fraudulently billing the products to Medicare. Medicare assigns products to an HPPC code group, which, among other things, indicates whether the product may be billed to Medicare. Adult diapers are assigned to a non-billable code, A4554. Pergler, however, billed ""belted undergarments"" and ""briefs"" to Medicare under billable code A4328, arguing that their status fell into a gray area.