A Los Angeles-area woman was sentenced to federal prison and ordered to repay more than $14 million after admitting she ran a long-running Medicare billing scheme that used sham hospice and diagnostic providers to submit false claims.
A federal judge on Monday handed Sophia Shaklian, 38, a 35-month prison term and ordered restitution totaling $14,103,043 after she pleaded guilty to one count of health care fraud in November 2025. The charges stem from a sprawling scheme prosecutors say ran from March 2019 through August 2024 and targeted Medicare with bogus billing for hospice services and diagnostic testing.
Prosecutors say Shaklian and her co-schemers created or used a network of fake providers to submit claims for services that were unnecessary, never delivered, or billed under beneficiaries’ names without their consent. The operation relied on multiple business names and aliases, and it repeatedly checked Medicare eligibility to make the fraudulent billing look routine and billable.
The alleged provider roster included Chateau d’Lumina Hospice and Palliative Care, a Pasadena-based hospice company owned by Shaklian, plus diagnostic testing firms listed as Saint George Radiology in Sylmar; Hope Diagnostics in North Hollywood; Direct Imaging & Diagnostics and Lab One in Hollywood; and Labtech and Lifescan Diagnostics in Claremont. Those exact business names are part of court filings describing how the scheme presented a web of entities to Medicare.
Investigators say many claims were submitted for beneficiaries who did not need services, had never received them, and were unfamiliar with the listed providers. Shaklian admitted in her plea agreement that fraudulent claims were submitted on behalf of the sham providers, some by herself and others by co-schemers, and that she was involved in billing and knew what Medicare paid for those types of claims.
As one concrete example, the court record shows Shaklian and associates submitted a false claim to Medicare for $2,000 in November 2022, invoicing diagnostic testing as if it had been provided to a beneficiary. The plea notes say that conduct, repeated across thousands of transactions, caused a loss of over $14 million to Medicare.
The restitution figure — $14,103,043 — reflects amounts tied to the fraudulent claims the government traced back to the sham providers and billing schemes. United States District Judge Stanley Blumenfeld Jr. imposed the prison term along with the financial judgment, a combination designed to recoup losses and punish those who exploit federal programs.
Alongside Shaklian, co-defendant Alex Alexsanian, 48, of Burbank, pleaded guilty on January 20 to one count of conspiracy to launder monetary instruments. Alexsanian, also known in filings as “Samvel” and “Samo,” faces a statutory maximum of 20 years in federal prison at his sentencing, scheduled for April 28.
The case is being investigated by the United States Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General and the FBI, agencies that regularly prioritize schemes targeting Medicare and other federal health programs. Those agencies worked with prosecutors to trace billing patterns, verify beneficiary records, and build the financial picture presented at sentencing.
Assistant United States Attorney Kevin B. Reidy of the Major Frauds Section is handling prosecution of the case on behalf of the government. Court filings and the plea agreement outline the scope of the fraud, the methods used to conceal it, and the roles attributed to Shaklian and others involved in the scheme.
Federal prosecutors highlight this type of case as an example of how organized billing fraud can drain trust and resources from legitimate health care programs. By charging and convicting those responsible, the government seeks to recover funds and deter similar abuse that takes money away from beneficiaries and lawful medical providers.
Court records show the scheme used beneficiary information to submit claims and checked Medicare eligibility as part of the process, a pattern that made the fraudulent bills look more credible to payers. The sentencing and restitution orders are the latest steps in closing out a multi-year fraud investigation that federal authorities pursued once the unusual billing patterns were detected.
