He didn’t want to get run over by the “gravy train.”
A crooked Long Island orthopedist pleaded guilty this morning to helping hundreds of greedy LIRR workers retire early with lucrative pensions by falsely diagnosing them with career-ending disabilities.
Dr. Peter Ajemian faces at least 10-plus years in the slammer under his terms of his plea bargain to conspiracy and health-care fraud.
Ajemian, 63, also agreed to make restitution of $116.5 million — representing the amount scammed from the Railroad Retirement Board with his assistance — although his lawyer said afterward that Ajemian doesn’t have nearly that much cash.
The plea deal was struck just weeks before a trial at which Ajemian would have faced damning testimony from several former LIRR workers who pleaded guilty to scamming disability benefits and are cooperating with the feds.
Manhattan federal prosecutor Justin Weddle also said there was reams of other evidence proving that Ajemian ran a “disability fraud mill” that let hundreds of perfectly healthy railroad employees “retire to a life of golf, tennis, or even second jobs.”
According to the feds, Ajemian pocketed payoffs of between $800 and $1,200 — often in cash — from each worker, as well as millions in insurance payments for unnecessary medical treatments to back up his bogus diagnoses.
Two other doctors have also been implicated in the massive scheme, in which about 1,500 LIRR workers are believed to have taken part.
The long-running scam would have resulted in $1 billion in fraudulent payouts if it hadn’t been busted in 2011, according to authorities.
Only 32 people have been charged to date — of whom 21 have pleaded guilty — but Manhattan U.s. Attorney Preet Bharara noted that an investigation of the “breathtaking and brazen fraud” was continuing.
During his appearance in Manhattan federal court, Ajemian, of Oyster Bay Cove, read a prepared statement admitting that around 2002, he began seeing “large numbers” of LIRR workers “who sought my assistance in having them declared ‘occupationally disabled’ as of their retirement date from the LIRR.”
“Knowing that these employees were not in fact disabled, and from 2004 to 2008, I prepared narratives for submission to the Railroad Retirement Board on behalf of these employees, agreed to cooperate with the feds,” he said.
“These narratives recited a medical basis for these claims of disability whereas, in truth and in fact, these employees were not disabled and could have continued working in their railroad jobs, as they had without complaint right up to the time of their retirement date.”
The white-haired medical fraudster stood with his chin up during most of his court appearance, and didn’t express any remorse.
He refused to comment afterward.
Charges remain pending against another orthopedist, Dr. Peter Lesniewski, who’s set for trial in July.
The third doctor implicated in the case, Ralph Parisi, died in 2011, about six months before the feds started making arrests.
bruce.golding@nypost.com