Cambell

I. Factual and Procedural Background

This lawsuit arises out of a scheme involving the perfor- mance of thousands of unnecessary invasive cardiac proce- dures at the Redding Medical Center (“RMC”) for the purposes of fraudulently billing Medicare. On October 30, 2002, Magistrate Judge Peter Nowinski issued a medical records search warrant authorizing the FBI to investigate RMC and the medical offices of the defendant doctors. The FBI executed the search warrant at RMC that same day. The U.S. Attorney’s Office also released the Search Warrant Affi- davit to the public and the press on October 30.

On November 5, 2002, John Corapi, a former RMC patient, and Joseph Zerga, his friend, filed a sealed qui tam complaint pursuant to the False Claims Act, 31 U.S.C. § 3729-3733 (“FCA”), and the California False Claims Act in the United 11122 CAMPBELL v. UNITED STATES States District Court for the Eastern District of California against RMC; Tenet Healthcare Corporation; Chae Moon, RMC’s director of Cardiology; and Fidel Realyvasquez, the Chairman of RMC’s Cardiac Surgery Program. The Corapi/ Zerga complaint alleged that the defendants had submitted false claims to federal and…