A 79-year-old cardiologist from Florida was sentenced Tuesday to serve six years in federal prison and to pay $4.6 million in restitution for his role in defrauding a $3.6 billion settlement trust with funds for Fen-Phen diet drug plaintiffs who alleged they experienced heart injuries.
Dr. Abdur Razzak Tai was convicted of 13 counts of mail and wire fraud in a scheme to get paid for medical reports by falsely certifying that the Fen-Phen claimants whose echocardiograms he reviewed were so injured by diet drugs that their heart valves were leaking blood. In some instances, Tai did not personally review the echocardiograms that were instead reviewed by an assistant Tai hired.
