A Connecticut doctor has been sentenced to 90 months in prison for illegally distributing prescription medications and committing healthcare fraud through his medical practice. Anatoly Braylovsky, 52, of Wallingford, operating as a Ct Doctor, received the sentence from U.S. District Judge Kari A. Dooley in Bridgeport. This sentence follows his conviction on charges related to controlled substances and healthcare fraud.
Braylovsky, an internal medicine physician, ran the Family Practice of Greater New Haven, LLC in Wallingford. His practice accepted patients with Medicare, Medicaid, and commercial insurance. Starting around 2014, authorities, including the DEA and Wallingford Police Department, began receiving complaints regarding Braylovsky’s prescription practices as a CT doctor. By early 2016, both the DEA Diversion Control Division and the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection’s Drug Control Division expressed concerns to Braylovsky about his prescribing habits, particularly noting that some of his patients had criminal backgrounds. Despite these warnings and subsequent investigations using the Connecticut Prescription Monitoring Program, which revealed his continued high-volume prescriptions of opioids, Alprazolam, and Adderall, Braylovsky persisted in his practices.
Investigations uncovered that some of Braylovsky’s patients, including Jennifer Bousquet, were given prescriptions for these powerful drugs without medical necessity and subsequently sold the pills for profit. Further allegations emerged that Braylovsky himself was selling prescriptions for cash and receiving pills back from patients who had them filled.
In October 2019, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG), joined the investigation, focusing on the fraudulent use of Medicaid and Medicare to pay for these medically unnecessary prescriptions issued by the CT doctor. For at least three years, Bousquet, for example, received monthly prescriptions from Braylovsky for significant quantities of controlled substances: 170 oxycodone 30mg pills, 75 Adderall 20mg pills, and 30 alprazolam 2mg pills.
Law enforcement utilized a confidential source, a patient of Braylovsky and an associate of Bousquet, to further investigate. This source, acting under supervision, paid Braylovsky cash in exchange for oxycodone prescriptions. On four separate occasions between October 2019 and January 2020, the source paid Braylovsky $1,600 in cash and received a prescription for 150 oxycodone 30mg pills each time. Notably, Braylovsky conducted no physical examinations or health discussions during these encounters, yet still billed Medicaid for each office visit. This pattern continued, with the source providing another $1,600 for a prescription in March 2020 and again in April 2020, the latter payment delivered to Braylovsky’s car after a telehealth appointment conducted via FaceTime due to the COVID-19 pandemic. After each prescription was filled, DEA agents seized the oxycodone pills as evidence. Medicaid covered the cost of these fraudulent prescriptions.
Between January 2016 and May 2020, Medicare and Medicaid paid over $1.6 million for Schedule II medications, including oxycodone, prescribed by Braylovsky. During the same period, Braylovsky’s practice received over $590,000 from Medicare and Medicaid for routine office visits. Investigators determined that Braylovsky fraudulently billed Medicare and Medicaid a total of $199,388.84 for illegitimate office visits and medically unnecessary prescriptions.
Braylovsky and Bousquet were arrested on June 4, 2020.
Adding to his criminal actions, in August 2021, while out on bond awaiting trial, Braylovsky sought to hire a hitman to kill or intimidate the confidential source in his case. He met with an undercover law enforcement officer posing as a hitman, leading to his re-arrest on August 27, 2021, and subsequent detention.
On December 21, 2023, Braylovsky pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute oxycodone and healthcare fraud. In addition to the 90-month prison sentence, Judge Dooley ordered Braylovsky to pay $199,388.84 in restitution. Bousquet, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute oxycodone on July 6, 2021, is awaiting sentencing.
Furthermore, in a related civil case, Braylovsky and his practice, Family Practice of Greater New Haven, LLC, reached a civil settlement with the federal and state governments, paying $398,777.68. This settlement resolved allegations of False Claims Act violations related to billing for services not rendered and issuing medically unnecessary controlled substance prescriptions, including oxycodone, to Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries between January 2016 and June 2020. Braylovsky was the sole practitioner at Family Practice of Greater New Haven, which is now closed.
The investigation was a collaborative effort by the DEA New Haven Task Force, HHS-OIG, FBI, Connecticut State Police, Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection – Drug Control Division, Connecticut Department of Public Health, Wallingford Police Department, and Easton Police Department. Assistant U.S. Attorney John T. Pierpont, Jr. prosecuted the criminal case, while Assistant U.S. Attorneys David Nelson and Sarah Gruber, along with Deputy Associate Attorney General Gregory O’Connell of the Connecticut Office of the Attorney General, handled the civil case.
This case highlights the serious consequences for medical professionals, like this CT doctor, who engage in illegal drug distribution and healthcare fraud, undermining public trust and jeopardizing patient safety.
