Laboratory part-owner sentenced in scheme

A U.S. attorney says James L. McKeown Jr. could have stopped a kickbacks scheme at the Clearwater Clinical Laboratories.

By ROBERT FARLEY

© St. Petersburg Times, published April 27, 2001

TAMPA -- James L. McKeown Jr., the minority owner of Clearwater Clinical Laboratories, was sentenced to six months in a halfway house on Thursday for his part in a scheme to pay doctors kickbacks in exchange for referrals.

U.S. District Judge Richard A. Lazzara said he would have given McKeown, 39, of Seminole, a probationary sentence, like the two other laboratory executives who pleaded guilty in the case received, if not for the additional charge of paying a man to sink his yacht so he could collect insurance money.

Last week, Lazzara sentenced the company's general manager, Vincent Gepp of Palm Harbor, and the company's founder and majority owner, McKeown's father, James L. McKeown Sr., to three years of probation.

The case also resulted in the indictment of more than a dozen doctors from Pinellas, Pasco and Hernando counties. Those doctors were accused of steering nearly $1.4-million in Medicare business to the lab in the mid 1990s in exchange for $400,000 in kickbacks.

Prosecutors said many of the kickbacks were paid through fraudulent contracts with doctors to act as "testing review officers." The younger McKeown's attorney, Daniel L. Castillo, said McKeown set up the testing review officer program as a legitimate way to establish a relationship with doctors.

"They were trying to compete in a highly competitive business," Castillo said.

But, Castillo said, employees began to abuse the program and "it started a slippery slope and there was no stopping." Castillo argued that McKeown, who ran the company's day-to-day operations, was no more culpable than others charged in the case, as well as some employees who were not charged.

"He did nothing more than everyone else," Castillo said.

"Who was the mastermind?" Judge Lazzara asked. "I'm beginning to wonder."

"There was no top dog in this," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Gary Montilla.

Salespeople, managers, the company owners, the doctors: all participated, Montilla said.

Montilla said the younger McKeown, a 49 percent shareholder in the company, only worked at the company about two hours a day. And although there were others involved, Montilla said, McKeown "was one of the people who could have put a stop to it."

Montilla noted that after McKeown "came around," he was "extraordinarily cooperative" with investigators. His court testimony was instrumental in the prosecutions of doctors Ira Harvey Liss of New Port Richey and Michael Spuza of St. Petersburg, Montilla said. Both were later sentenced to 15 months in prison. Both have appealed.

In August, McKeown pleaded guilty to mail fraud in connection with charges that he paid a man $5,000 to sink his 46-foot Sea Ray yacht, the Marlintini, so he could collect insurance money.

Castillo said it was Gepp who orchestrated that scheme, even though Gepp was never charged in the scheme.

Castillo said the boat had become too much of a financial burden for McKeown. "All he did is suggest to Mr. Gepp that he'd like to see the boat go away," Castillo said. Castillo said Gepp told McKeown, "I can make that go away for you."

In McKeown's plea agreement, investigators said William F. Chapoutot took the boat out to sea after dark and shot holes in it with a handgun and shotgun. McKeown later reported to his insurance company that the boat was presumed stolen.

Asked why Gepp had not been charged in the boat case, Montilla said, "I can't tell you that."

Montilla went on to explain that when a person is negotiating a plea with an investigator and the investigator learns about a new crime, that information can't be used against that person.

Judge Lazzara chastised McKeown for his "audacity" to sue the insurance company. In addition to the six-month sentence, Lazzara ordered McKeown to pay restitution of $145,170 for the Clearwater Clinical Laboratories case. He is jointly responsible for that money with nine doctors and Gepp. McKeown also was ordered to repay $161,000 to the Maryland Casualty Insurance Co. for the boat case.

Castillo said McKeown is "flat broke."

"If you look at what he's gained in the case, he's gained nothing," Castillo said. "He has lost everything."

- Staff writer Robert Farley can be reached at (727) 445-4185 or farley@sptimes.com.

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