Convicted Health Care Fraud defendant sentenced to an additional six-month sentence for failing to report to prison as directed

Press Release

Defendant facing two-year term went on run from Oregon home; is arrested after member of the public reported him in an Oregon bar

Seattle - The former co-owner of a defunct medical testing company, who failed to report to prison as directed last spring, was sentenced today in U.S. District Court in Seattle to an additional six months in prison, announced U.S. Attorney Tessa M. Gorman. Richard Reid, 55, was convicted in March 2022, of five federal felonies connected to his scheme to profit from illegal kickbacks in the medical testing industry. In January 2023 he was sentenced to two years in prison.

At today's sentencing hearing U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour said Reid's persistent failure to accept responsibility "takes my breath away."

Reid had repeatedly petitioned the judge to delay his prison reporting date, claiming to have COVID-19 and then long COVID. Judge John C. Coughenour refused to delay the date past the end of April 2023. Rather than report to prison, Reid left his home in Astoria, Oregon and went on the run. The FBI issued a "Wanted" poster.

On May 7, 2023, a member of the public reported seeing Reid, and he was arrested in Taylorsville, Oregon.

In asking for an additional ten months in prison, Assistant U.S. Attorney Mike Dion wrote to the court, "Richard Reid refused to accept responsibility for his role in a healthcare kickbacks scheme, and then refused to serve the sentence imposed by the Court. He exploited the Court's generosity in granting him two extensions of his reporting date, and simply ignored the Court's rejection of this third request. Many hours of law enforcement resources were wasted in a multi-day fugitive investigation that ended with Reid being arrested in a bar."

The activities of Bellevue-based Northwest Physicians Laboratory (NWPL) have been the subject of extensive civil and criminal litigation. Richard Reid was one of the owners and the Vice President of Sales for NWPL. Reid helped NWPL obtain more than $3.7 million in kickback payments by steering urine drug test specimens to two labs that could bill the government for testing.

The case was investigated by the FBI, Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG), and the Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS).

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Michael Dion

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Updated July 30, 2024