{"id":9935,"date":"2016-12-09T12:46:46","date_gmt":"2016-12-09T17:46:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=9935"},"modified":"2016-12-09T12:46:46","modified_gmt":"2016-12-09T17:46:46","slug":"lakewood-chiropractor-charged-with-insurance-fraud-drug-possession","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2016\/12\/lakewood-chiropractor-charged-with-insurance-fraud-drug-possession\/","title":{"rendered":"Lakewood Chiropractor Charged With Insurance Fraud, Drug Possession"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Carlo<\/a>

Carlo Amato (Photo: Ocean County Jail)<\/p><\/div>\n

A Lakewood chiropractor has been charged with fraudulently filing health insurance claims following a multi-agency investigation into insurance fraud at his office.<\/p>\n

Carlo Amato, 55, of Beachwood, was arrested Wednesday and faces four counts of health care claims fraud and one count of illegally possessing the painkiller fentanyl.<\/p>\n

The investigation centered around Personal Injury Protection, or PIP, claims, according to the Ocean County Prosecutor\u2019s Office. Few additional details on the nature of the allegations were divulged in a press release issued by the office on Friday. Amato\u2019s office is located on River Avenue in Lakewood.<\/p>\n

The arrest was the culmination of an investigation by the prosecutor\u2019s office, Ocean County Sheriff\u2019s Department as well as the FBI and the\u00a0National Insurance Crime Bureau.\u00a0The charges are the result of an undercover operation begun in early fall of 2015, which culminated Wednesday with the execution of a court-authorized search warrant of Amato\u2019s residence, chiropractic office, 2017 Audi Q7 and 2014 Porsche Panamera automobiles, said Al Della Fave, spokesman for the prosecutor\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

Amato was housed in the Ocean County Jail in lieu of bail set at $200,000 cash. Further conditions of his bail mandate he is not allowed to practice chiropractic medicine due to his possession of fentanyl and must surrender his passport.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe investigation continues and the criminal case will be prosecuted by Ocean County Supervising Assistant Prosecutor Martin Anton,\u201d said Della Fave. \u201cA Civil Forfeiture complaint and other legal documents were filed by the Ocean County Prosecutor\u2019s Office seeking all assets obtained as a result of the alleged illegal acts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Patients who believe their\u00a0insurance carrier was overbilled for services Amato\u00a0did not perform, are being asked to contact Detective John LaRaia at 732-929-2027.<\/p>\n

In 2009, Amato was involved in a high-profile drug possession case and was ultimately\u00a0exonerated<\/a> after it was found that a man who had entered into a relationship with his\u00a0girlfriend planted the drugs on the undercarriage of his vehicle, then called police with a tip that Amato was transporting the substances. The man,\u00a0Michael Cortese, of Bay Head, was later charged in the incident and sentenced to a year in jail. He later lost a multi million-dollar civil lawsuit filed by Amato.<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Lakewood chiropractor has been charged with fraudulently filing health insurance claims following a multi-agency investigation into insurance fraud at his office. Carlo Amato, 55, of Beachwood, was arrested Wednesday and faces four counts of health care claims fraud and one count of illegally possessing the painkiller fentanyl. The investigation centered around Personal Injury Protection, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9936,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[24,2646,2647,2621,2648],"class_list":["post-9935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-police-fire-courts","tag-brick-nj-news","tag-carlo-amato","tag-chiropractor","tag-fentanyl","tag-insurance-fraud"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Carlo-Amato.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgt2Ft-2Af","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9935\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}