Doctor to plead guilty in fraud

A Newport Beach doctor faces possibly decades behind bars for allegedly defrauding medical insurance companies and Medicare up to $1 million through false billing, authorities said Thursday.

Glen R. Justice, 65, who lives in Corona del Mar, indicated in a plea agreement Wednesday that he is ready to plead guilty to five counts of health-care fraud related to his cancer-treatment practice, authorities said.

Federal prosecutors said that Justice charged companies up to $1 million for injectable cancer medications that he never administered.

Justice runs the Fountain Valley-based Pacific Coast Hematology/Oncology Medical Group and is scheduled to enter a plea May 3.

From 2004 to October 2009, Justice inflated health insurance claims by reporting he had given his patients more expensive injectable medications for their cancer than he actually had administered, according to court filings.

Despite office staff objections, and authorities serving a search warrant on his business in late 2006, Justice persisted, prosecutors said.

Each count of health-care fraud carries with it a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. The charges were a joint effort of the FBI, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the IRS and the Department of Defense, officials said.