They were dancing with the devils.
A bunch of crooked Queens doctors paid their patients to take ballroom dance lessons in their clinic basement — and then masqueraded the sessions as legitimate physical therapy in fraudulent Medicare claims, sources told The Post.
The scheming doctors also rewarded patients with massages, facials and free lunches in their Flushing practices for helping them submit a staggering $11.7 million worth of false claims, officials said.
Among those charged were Ho Yon Kim, 85, a physician, and his son, Gilbert Kim, 59, who served as the office manager, as well as a chiropractor and another doctor.
The Kims also administered unnecessary electro-stimulation therapy and physical therapy to patients — and even billed for completely fabricated services that were never performed, officials said.
The Kims’ alleged schemes were unveiled yesterday after FBI agents teamed with investigators from the Department of Health and Human Services to arrest a dozen people in a sweep of raids across New York, charging them with participating in several unrelated health-care fraud rings, officials said. None of the patients who helped in the scheme have been charged publicly.
“Today 12 individuals — including three medical doctors and other licensed health professionals — were charged with participating in sophisticated Medicare fraud and money-laundering schemes throughout Brooklyn and Queens,” Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, said at a Washington press conference.
“These defendants sought to profit by stealing millions of taxpayer dollars from the Medicare program and laundering the proceeds of this illegal activity,” Breuer said.
Justice Department trial attorneys Sarah Hall and Katherine Houston also detailed for a Brooklyn federal judge allegations against another medical practice in Queens and charged a third group with laundering illicit health-care fraud proceeds in Brooklyn.
An osteopath, Emma Poroger, 56, of Staten Island, was charged with defrauding Medicare of $13 million. She allegedly billed Medicare for a series of unneeded health-care services — such as vitamin infusion therapy, sleep studies, nerve conduction tests and duplex scans — that were never provided, prosecutors said.
A third group was charged yesterday with laundering funds for the Bay Medical clinic, whose operators were indicted last year on Medicare fraud charges and are awaiting trial.
Among those arrested on money-laundering charges connected to that Brooklyn clinic was Alexander Zaretser, a noted goalie who played for the Dynamo professional soccer team in Minsk, Belarus.
“A program to help seniors manage the costs of health care was abused to line the pockets of unscrupulous doctors and others,” said FBI Assistant Director in Charge Janice K. Fedarcyk.