FBI, IRS Raid Area Convalescent Hospitals

The FBI and three California state agencies raided an Eagle Rock and South Pasadena convalescent hospitals on Thursday morning in connection with what one officer on the scene in Eagle Rock described as alleged health care fraud.

The hospital targeted in Eagle Rock was , located at 4681 Eagle Rock Blvd.

No such raid was conducated at Amerwood Convalescent Home in Highland Park, according to director Eileen Robles.

"It's been business as usual here," Robles said "All nursing homes are overseen by the Department of State Services, and occasionally they will conduct surprise inspections, but nothing has happened here."

Armed FBI agents served a search warrant on the hospital in connection with alleged “convalescent health care frauds,” according to an officer from the California Department of Justice Police, which participated in the raid.

“Federal agents from the FBI and the IRS are executing search warrants,” Lourdes Arocho, a spokesperson at the FBI field office in the Federal Building on Wilshire Boulevard confirmed to Patch, adding: “We cannot confirm what investigation this is for because the matter is sealed" by the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.

The FBI and DOJ Police were accompanied by agents from the federal Internal Revenue Service and personnel from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in the Office of the Inspector General, Arocho said.

When Patch arrived at the hospital in Eagle Rock at about 9 a.m., uniformed officers could be seen screening visitors and taking away documents in cardboard boxes. People who were in the hospital were permitted to leave, however.

“This has been going on in several other places today” in Los Angeles county, the DOJ Police officer told Patch on condition that his name not be used. Arocho told Patch, however, that she could not comment on whether other investigations were underway because of court restrictions.

According to the Pasadena Star News, "agents from the FBI, IRS, California Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services" were on the scene at the South Pasadena Convalescent Home on 904 Mission Street at about 8 a.m.