After nearly a year and a half of contested litigation, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California abruptly moved to dismiss all criminal charges against the firm’s client, a prominent pain management physician from the Washington, D.C. area. U.S. District Judge Josephine Staton signed the dismissal order the next day, ending a painful ordeal for the client and his family.

“This misguided prosecution should never have been brought in the first place. It caused unjustified suffering to a well-respected doctor and his family,” said Bienert Katzman Littrell Williams LLP Partner John Littrell.

The U.S. Attorney charged BKLW’s client in July 2021, along with three other pain management physicians and four former executives of a genetic testing company, with a conspiracy to violate the Federal Anti-Kickback Statute (“AKS”). The indictment accused BKLW’s client of soliciting bribes in exchange for ordering genetic tests offered by an Orange County-based biosciences lab.

BKLW’s investigation exposed the false assumptions underlying the government’s case and helped reveal serious errors by the U.S. Attorney’s prosecution team that surfaced in the weeks before trial was to begin.

“The BKLW team and all defense counsel worked relentlessly to expose the weaknesses and errors that pervaded the government’s case from the get-go,” said BKLW attorney Alexis Federico. “It was an honor to work together with some of the most accomplished white collar defense lawyers in the business; each firm was essential to getting this result.”

This exceptional outcome was the culmination of skilled advocacy by BKLW Partners John L. Littrell and Thomas H. Bienert, Jr., and relentless pressure from BKLW’s accomplished trial team, led by trial attorneys Alexis Paschedag Federico and Sandra C. Lechman and litigation paralegals Toni Thomas and Garrison Giali, along with expertise from digital forensics examiner Niko Costin.