Doctor sentenced to 18 months for health-care fraud

A federal judge sentenced a Corona del Mar doctor to 18 months in prison for submitting bills for drugs that cancer patients never received, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Dr. Glen R. Justice, 66, was sentenced Monday at the U.S. District Court in Santa Ana. He pleaded guilty to five counts of health-care fraud in May 2010.

Justice ran the Pacific Coast Hematology/Oncology Medical Group in Fountain Valley, according to a news release. He was convicted of billing insurance providers, including Medicare, for injectable drugs that patients never received and for more expensive drugs than were actually administered.

The Department of Justice estimates that the public and private health insurance providers lost between $400,000 and $1 million from the scheme, which ran from at least 2004. It also states that Justice did not contest allegations that he continued to submit fraudulent bills after signing a plea agreement in March 2010.

Justice was also ordered to pay more than $1 million in restitution.

— Alexandra Baird