Democrats would have you believe all the rich bad guys are Republicans. Don't believe it. Unless the Dems can prove Kareem Ahmed, king of the kickbacks, isn't one of theirs, they probably shouldn't throw another stone.
Ahmed is president and CEO of a company called Landmark Medical Management. More to the point, he's a top Obama donor -- a whale -- who dropped $1 million to help re-elect the president in 2012.
Exactly what he wanted for such a big, friendly gift, given to the creator of Obamacare, is something we can only speculate.
Last week he and 15 of his associates were indicted by a California grand jury, and it's serious business. Ahmed,accused of masterminding a multimillion-dollar insurance kickback scheme, faces charges including conspiracy, insurance fraud, and, get this -- involuntary manslaughter.
TPM broke the story Friday. But you know how it goes. When it's about big Democratic donors found to be scumbags, the mainstream media are always a little slow to turn on the lights. With a few exceptions -- notably the New York Daily News -- it's just now beginning to waft out of the West Coast woodwork.
In a nutshell -- for years Ahmed allegedly got rich by paying doctors tens of millions of dollars to prescribe a bogus topical cream to injured workers, then he used some of his profits to help elect Democrats to high national office.
TPM reporter Eric Lach writes, "The first of two sealed indictments accuses Ahmed of developing topical cream formulas 'based on the profitability of the ingredients,' and then giving doctors who treated workers' compensation patients illegal financial incentives to prescribe the creams."
The scheme apparently ran from 2009-2013 and also involved filing false claims with multiple insurance companies. It's a nine-count indictment we're talking about here.
Altogether, between June 15, 2010, and December 21, 2012, Ahmed allegedly paid physicians more than $25 million to dispense his creams.
The second indictment surrounds a child who allegedly died as a result of this shady and immoral kickback scheme -- although the details of what exactly happened to him or the manner in which he died are sketchy.
Lach writes, "The indictment provides few details on the involuntary manslaughter charge, alleging only that Ahmed, a pharmacist named Michael Rudolph, and a doctor named Andrew Jarminiski (who are both charged along with Ahmed in the first indictment) 'did unlawfully and without malice kill Andrew G. (a minor), a human being, in the commission of a lawful act which might produce death, in an unlawful manner and without due caution and circumspection.'"
Ahmed has written checks to at least two candidates in 2014 -- $5,200 to Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa.,and $2,600 to freshman Congresswoman Julia Brownley, D-Calif.
Only the National Republican Congressional Committee, through its Digital Press Secretary Andrew Clark, has raised a ruckus about this. As you might expect, none of the mainstreamers have yet.
An indicted Democrat mega-donor is funneling his dirty campaign cash to Julia Brownley," said Clark. "If she wants to prove that this type of politics has no place in Southern California, then she should lead by example and return the donation immediately.
I thought this story deserved an airing even in Florida, where Democrats routinely lament how right-leaning millionaires and billionaires are trying to buy America. And oh, how they denigrate the personalities involved as despicable characters.
Well, in Kareem Ahmed, we really do have a despicable character and he's as liberal as the day is long.
Is asking a pair of Democrats serving at the people's pleasure to return checks given to them by this particular wealthy donor -- a suspected scumbag under indictment -- an unreasonable request? I don't think it is.
Reach Nancy Smith at nsmith@sunshinestatenews.com or at 228-282-2423.
