AUSTIN — Attorney General Ken Paxton took a $100,000 gift from a Texas CEO who was being investigated for Medicare and Medicaid fraud, but he had no knowledge of the probe and his agency had little to do with it, multiple agencies have told The Dallas Morning News.
“General Paxton had no knowledge or involvement in this matter,” Paxton spokesman Marc Rylander told The News. Other officials also said Paxton’s office played a small role in the probe and a later settlement, lending credence to the attorney general’s insistence there was no conflict of interest in his taking the money.
Last Friday, John Parker, the U.S. attorney for the North District of Texas, announced that a North Texas medical imaging company would pay a $3.5 million settlement after a former employee and whistleblower alleged it profited off providing services to Medicare and Medicaid patients without the required attending physician present…
HHSC Commissioner Charles Smith and Raymond Winter, chief of the state attorney general’s Civil Medicaid Fraud Division, signed off on the settlement amount. ..