A popular poker figure featuring on a new cash game livestream is facing up to 5 years in federal prison and millions in fines and civil penalties.
Medical Testing Fraud
Billy Joe Taylor, who poker fans watching the TCH livestream cash games from the Texas Card House in Dallas will remember as a loose-calling whale, was indicted last month in the Western District of Arkansas, following a police raid on his properties in Sebastian County.
Multiple luxury cars and “technology” was confiscated as part of the raid, while Bildo, the poker screen name of Taylor, turned himself in a fortnight ago at the federal courthouse in Fort Smith, only to be released on a $100,000 bond several hours later.
Taylor, 42, was caught amid a crackdown on coronavirus-related crimes nationwide, and his case may turn out to be the biggest medical fraud in the history of Arkansas, as according to DOJ, Taylor’s medical labs billed the US government $88 million in unnecessary or never-performed tests.
The nationwide crackdown against medical test fraudsters indicted 14 defendants across 7 states for incurring damages to the amount of $143 million, of which $88 million attributed to Taylor alone.
Details of the Fraudulent Scheme
According to claims from the federal agents investigating the case, Taylor’s two companies, Vitas Laboratories LLC out of Arkansas and Beach Tox LLC out of California were participating in the criminal scheme even prior the coronavirus outbreak, starting from November 2017.
The federal complaint against Billy Joe Taylor paints the picture in details as to how his two testing labs utilized the fraudulent scheme by acquiring the names and social security numbers for government-funded tests beneficiaries, and then bill Medicare for test prescribed by doctors who never ordered the tests.
According to investigators, there were hundreds of cases where beneficiaries had died or stopped providing samples to the labs, one of which, Beach Tox, did not even have the necessary equipment to perform some of the billed tests.
On the TCH livestream poker tables, Bildo featured on the $10/25/50 No-Limit Hold’em game, throwing loose money in pots without having enough equity in the hands, and most of the times relying on luck. He had no notable success in his occasional tournament plays, but on the cash games was involved in the largest pots of the popular webcast, and when luck was on his side, managed to deliver stomach-churning beats to some of his opponents.
Luck is out of the equation as far as his indictment goes, as Taylor is facing millions in fines and civil penalties and up to 5 years in federal prison.