MOUNTAINSIDE, NJ — Today, the Bob Hugin for U.S. Senate campaign released the following statement after Senator Bob Menendez’s pathetic attacks during a press conference yesterday:

“Only a corrupt, career politician like Bob Menendez would fail to grasp the sheer hypocrisy of attacking someone else’s ethics,” said Hugin for Senate Communications Director Megan Piwowar. “Aside from Menendez’s own complete lack of ethical standards, where was his phony concern for patients when his best friend and co-defendant spent years conducting treatments that were ‘truly horrific,’ ‘barbaric’ and ‘inhumane’ according to prosecutors, on unsuspecting seniors at his Florida doctor’s office?

“If Menendez really had a moral compass, he wouldn’t have abused his power to try and short circuit a federal investigation into Dr. Melgen’s Medicare fraud scheme. A criminal scheme that saw him steal tens of millions of dollars by splitting single dose vials of expensive eye drugs and performing unnecessary operations that left patients blind, and then using the ill-gotten gains to lavish Menendez with expensive gifts and trips that the Senator tried to hide from view.”

BACKGROUND:

• EXPLOITING SENIORS | “His schemes involved convincing elderly patients on Medicare to undergo macular degeneration treatments that were not medically necessary, prescribing overpriced drugs, and falsifying records. Medicare paid for all services to these patients, resulting in millions of dollars in profit to Melgen. In 2012 alone, he received $21 million from Medicare, the highest of any doctor in the country.” (Pintas & Mullins Law Firm, “Eye Doctor Left Patients Blind, Reaped in Millions from Medicare Fraud,” 01/26/16)

• PATIENTS PERMANENTLY BLINDED BY MELGEN | “So, in a terrible twist of irony, patients with relatively healthy eyes like Belcher and Constantine were falsely diagnosed with age-related vision loss. Then they were treated using unreasonable and unnecessary procedures, the results of which led to their actual, permanent blindness. All for the greed of a single man, who used the profits to buy a private jet, an estate in the Dominican Republic, and a yacht, among other lavish lifestyle enhancers.” (Pintas & Mullins Law Firm, “Eye Doctor Left Patients Blind, Reaped in Millions from Medicare Fraud,” 01/26/16)

• BLINDED ELDERLY PATIENTS TO DEFRAUD MEDICARE | “His alleged scheme was simple: convince elderly patients to undergo macular degeneration treatments they might not need, treat said patients with expensive drugs, and make Medicare pay for it.” (Jerry Iannelli, “Infamous Eye Doctor Salomon Melgen Left Patients Blind, Lawsuit Says,” Broward Palm Beach New Times, 01/25/16)

• SEN. HARKIN (D-IA) TO STAFF: “KEEP TABS ON IT” | “He also wondered about Dr. Melgen’s billing practices. ‘If he’s treating three people and he’s charging three people for three but he’s only paying for one vial, that doesn’t sound right to me, either.’  He said he instructed his staff to ‘keep tabs on it,’ and that was the extent of his involvement.” (Nick Corasaniti, “Tom Harkin Recalls Meeting With Menendez And Melgen, And Not Much Else,” The New York Times, 9/27/17)

• TRULY HORRIFIC, BARBARIC & INHUMANE | “Salomon Melgen, who was convicted April 28 of defrauding Medicare, deserves a long prison term for crimes that were ‘truly horrific,’ ‘barbaric’ and ‘inhumane’ and that allowed him to live luxuriously, prosecutors wrote Tuesday. He’s to be sentenced next week in federal court in Florida.” (David Voreacos and Neil Weinberg, Prosecutors Seek 30-Year Sentence for Menendez’s Co-Defendant,  Bloomberg, 11/29/2017)

• LASERING PATIENTS’ EYES | “But soon after Melgen began working at the Aker Kasten Eye Center in 2002, optometrists began voicing concern that every patient Melgen examined was receiving a diagnosis of wet macular degeneration and being zapped with lasers, Aker said. ‘That was what was unsettling,’ Aker this week told a federal jury that will decided whether Melgen bilked Medicare out of as much as $105 million. ‘It seemed there was an epidemic of wet macular degeneration with these patients.”‘ (Jane Musgrave, “‘Top Retina Specialist Extremely Critical Of Melgen In Fraud Trial,” Palm Beach Post, 03/29/17)

• MENENDEZ “SORRY” FOR HIS FRIEND | “A lawyer for Mr. Menendez said that the senator was ‘saddened for his longtime friend.’” (Matthew Haag, “Doctor Linked to Senator Menendez’s Corruption Case Is Convicted of Fraud,” The New York Times, 04/28/2017)

• CORRUPT PAY-FOR-PLAY POLITICS | “Topping the list is Dr. Salomon E. Melgen, 59, an ophthalmologist from North Palm Beach, Fla., who received $21 million in Medicare reimbursements in 2012 alone. The doctor billed a bulk of his reimbursements for Lucentis, a medication used to treat macular degeneration made by a company that pays generous rebates to its doctors. Dr. Melgen’s firm donated more than $700,000 to Majority PAC, a super PAC run by former aides to the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada. The super PAC then spent $600,000 to help re-elect Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, who is a close friend of Dr. Melgen’s. Last year, Mr. Menendez himself became a  target of investigation after the senator intervened on behalf of Dr. Melgen with federal officials and took flights on his private jet.” (Frances Robles and Eric Lipton, “Political Ties of Top Billers for Medicare,” The New York Times, 04/09/14)

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