Minnesota Chiropractor, Runners Convicted in Auto Insurance Fraud Scheme

An Edina, Minnesota, chiropractor and his recruiters have been found guilty of auto insurance fraud, the Minnesota Department of Commerce announced in late December 2017.

Federal prosecutors reported that Adam John Burke, a chiropractor, and patient recruiters Abdirahin Khalif Ibrahim and Dana Enoch Kidd were convicted for their roles in a multi-million-dollar insurance fraud conspiracy.

Burke, Ibrahim and Kidd were initially indicted in December 2016. They were recently convicted on charges of conspiracy and mail fraud by a federal jury before Senior Judge Michael J. Davis in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis, Minn.

Prosecutors said trial documents show that beginning in at least 2012, Burke ran a scheme to defraud automobile insurance companies by hiring patient recruiters, or “runners,” to solicit automobile accident victims for treatments at Burke’s clinic, Burke Chiropractic Center P.A. (Burke Chiropractic). Runners, including Ibrahim and Kidd, typically were paid $1,000 to $2,000 for each patient they brought to Burke Chiropractic.

Burke would write checks to the runners with false descriptions in the memo lines such as “marketing,” “consulting fee,” or “pt transportation.” To further disguise the nature of the payments, he required runners to form corporate entities, such as limited liability companies, with names that sounded like legitimate businesses that performed marketing or transportation services. He wrote more than 280 checks to the runners, totaling more than $590,000.

The scheme was structured in order to maximize Burke Chiropractic’s billings to the insurance companies, according to prosecutors. Burke typically withheld kickback payments to runners until after the patients had attended a certain number of treatment sessions. To make sure that the patients attended the minimum number of treatment sessions, the runners frequently paid a portion of the kickback payments to the patients.

Additionally, Burke often referred patients to personal injury attorneys and instructed runners to advise patients that following through on all treatment sessions would result in a bigger insurance settlement.

This case was investigated by the Minnesota Commerce Fraud Bureau and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, with assistance from the Minneapolis Police Department, Saint Paul Police Department, Minnesota State Patrol and Homeland Security Investigations. It was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys David M. Maria and John E. Kokkinen.