N.J. imaging center president arrested in fraud investigation

Imaging centers in Hackensack, N.J., and other parts of the state were raided by state authorities on June 17 and the company’s president was arrested as part of a Medicaid fraud investigation, as reported by NorthJersey.com.

Rehan Zuberi, the president of American Imaging Center, was arrested along with his wife, Humara Paracha, and was being held in the Morris County Correctional Facility in Morris Township in lieu of $1 million bail. Zuberi was charged with failure to pay taxes, failure to file an income tax return, deception, bribery and racketeering, according to the jail’s records. Paracha faces the same charges as her husband and was being held in lieu of $300,000 bail.

This is not Zuberi’s first run in with the law, as he was sentenced in 1999 on charges related to another Medicaid fraud scheme, according to NorthJersey.com. State records reveal he was sentenced to six years in prison after pleading guilty to theft by deception and money laundering charges out of Monmouth County. A 1999 report by the state’s insurance fraud prosecutor said he operated a medical clinic and took kickbacks to send blood samples to a lab for “unnecessary and fraudulent tests.”

In November 2011, the state reinstated Zuberi as a provider of services administered by the state Division of Medical Assistance and Health Services, including Medicaid.

American Imaging Center has 11 centers across the state and performs MRIs and other medical imaging tests.