Several health care executives and practitioners were among the approximately 140 pardons and sentence commutations that Donald Trump issued in his last days as president of the United States.
Most of them, including the former top executive of a pain specialty practice, had been convicted for defrauding Medicare or taking kickbacks.
Trump commuted the remainder of the 42-month sentence being served by John Estin Davis, the former chief executive officer of Comprehensive Pain Specialists (CPS) in Gallatin, Tennessee. Davis had served 4 months of his sentence, according to a White House statement reported by MedPage Today.1
The website also reported, "Notably, no one suffered financially as a result of his crime and he has no other criminal record," according to the White House statement. Davis remains a defendant in a $50 million whistleblower lawsuit against CPS and some of its executives for defrauding government insurance programs through urine drug testing at pain clinics.
According to a press release from the US Department of Justice,2 Davis was convicted in April 2019 of 1 count of conspiracy to defraud the United States and violate the Anti-Kickback Statute, and 7 counts of violating the Anti-Kickback Statute.
The conviction for his part in the $4 million scheme came after a 7-day trial. Davis was sentenced in July 2020 by US District Judge William Campbell Jr, of the Middle District of Tennessee. The judge also ordered Davis to forfeit $770,036.00.
William "Ed" Henry, a former Alabama state representative, involved in a "pill mill" scheme, pleaded guilty in 2019 to 1 count of theft of government property as part of a deal with prosecutors. At least one of the physicians, Gilberto Sanchez, pleaded guilty in 2017 and was sentenced to several years in prison, related to the death of a patient from an overdose of sleep and anxiety medications.
Henry had originally faced an array of charges including paying kickbacks and health care fraud.
MedPage Today reported that Trump White House communications offered no rationale for the pardon except that newly elected US Senator Tommy Tuberville, a Republican from Alabama, recommended it.
An article from August 2019 in the Montgomery Advertizer reported that Henry and 3 doctors, whom prosecutors described as running a pill mill, defrauded the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services by waiving co-payments for chronic care services offered by Henry's private business.3
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