Convicted doc transferred to St. Martin jail

A Lafayette cardiologist three years into a 10-year term at the federal penitentiary in Oakdale for Medicare fraud was booked into the St. Martin Parish jail last week.
According to arrest records furnished by the St. Martin Sheriff’s Office, Mehmood Patel, 70, of Lafayette, was booked into the St. Martin Parish Correctional Center Wednesday, Aug. 5, on a hold for an unnamed agency.
Patel was convicted in 2009 on 51 counts of health care fraud. He started serving a 10-year sentence at Oakdale in December 2012.
The St. Martin Sheriff’s Office could not say what the prolific interventional cardiologist is doing in St. Martin Parish.
The federal Bureau of Prisons did not respond to an inquiry.
The U.S. Attorney referred Teche News to the U.S. Clerk of Court in Lafayette, who noted that Patel is due in court there on Wednesday, Aug. 12, for a hearing in a petition for the return of certain materials seized by the FBI in connection with his criminal case.
A search of federal records revealed that Patel has requested patient records and other seized materials for the 41 counts of which he was acquitted.
Witnesses said Patel, who practiced in the Lafayette area for 25 years, used radiation, angioplasty stints and balloons in healthy arteries, lying to the patients and falsifying records. Of the more than $3 million Patel billed Medicare and private insurance companies over three years, $542,000 of it was for unnecessary work, prosecutors charged.