Brooklyn cardiologist sentenced to 37 months in prison in connection with health care fraud and bribery scheme

Date: August 21, 2025

Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov

United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Jay Clayton, announced that Niranjan Mittal was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge Ronnie Abrams to 37 months in prison in connection with a years’ long health care fraud and bribery scheme. As part of that scheme, MITTAL, a Brooklyn-based cardiologist, paid physicians for patient referrals. The defendant also fabricated patient records in order to bill for medically unnecessary vascular procedures. In February 2025, MITTAL pled guilty to one count of violating the Anti-Kickback Statute in connection with the scheme.

“At the core of our healthcare system is patient-doctor trust,” said U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton. “Mittal abused that trust, turning his offices into ‘patient mills’ and subjecting trusting patients to procedures they did not need. Today’s sentence sends a deterrent message to doctors and the healthcare industry: if you abuse patient trust for profit, you will face justice.”

According to court documents and statements made during court proceedings:

Since at least 2016, MITTAL operated a medical clinic in Brooklyn, New York (the “Brooklyn Clinic”), with a patient base consisting of many individuals of limited economic means who were insured by government health care programs. In order to ensure a steady flow of new patients to the Brooklyn Clinic, MITTAL paid rental payments to other providers pursuant to purported “leases” for office space. Often, however, the timing and amount of the payments bore no relation to the terms of those leases. In fact, MITTAL made the purported lease payments to induce other providers to refer patients to MITTAL’s staff members, who, at the direction of MITTAL, periodically traveled to the providers’ offices, performed basic tests on the referred patients, and convinced the patients to attend follow-up appointments at the Brooklyn Clinic.

Once patients arrived at the Brooklyn Clinic, often without understanding why they had been referred to the practice, they underwent a series of diagnostic tests and follow-up office visits. These tests and office visits generally were not based on the patients’ actual treatment needs. Rather, MITTAL and others acting at his direction ordered these tests and office visits to create documentation sufficient to justify subjecting patients to unnecessary peripheral vascular interventional procedures—surgical procedures focused on clearing purported blockages in the blood vessels in patients’ legs. MITTAL directed others to, among other things, fabricate the descriptions of patients’ symptoms recorded in the practice’s office visit notes, varying the symptoms across patients so that it was not apparent that the symptoms were fake.

As a result of MITTAL’s scheme, patients at the Brooklyn Clinic, many of whom were already in poor health, routinely underwent medically unnecessary vascular interventions at MITTAL’s office, with some patients undergoing 10 or more interventional procedures over the course of several years. The patients’ conditions often did not improve, despite these repeated interventions. Between 2016 and 2023, insurers paid over $40 million to MITTAL’s practice for claims from patients who were referred by doctors who received improper “rent” payments from MITTAL.

In addition to the prison term, MITTAL of Brooklyn, New York, was sentenced to two years of supervised release and ordered to forfeit the proceeds traceable to his offense.

Mr. Clayton praised the outstanding investigative work of Internal Revenue Service – Criminal Investigations, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services – Office of the Inspector General, and U.S. Department of Homeland Security – Homeland Security Investigations.

The prosecution of this case is being handled by the Office’s Complex Frauds and Cybercrime Unit. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Patrick R. Moroney, Matthew Weinberg, Ryan B. Finkel, and Brandon C. Thompson are in charge of the prosecution.

IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) is the law enforcement arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. IRS-CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a 90% federal conviction rate. The agency has 19 field offices located across the U.S. and 14 attaché posts abroad.