The Justice Department announced that, as of August 2, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma had entered permanent injunctions that bar three Tulsa, Oklahoma-area men and two companies from running a fraudulent medical debt collection scheme that targeted current and former servicemembers and older Americans.
In its civil complaint, the United States alleged that Christopher Parks, 63, Christopher Noah Parks, 31, and Stephen Miller, 39, sent thousands of fraudulent debt collection notices on Assured Collections LLC and Assured Financial LLC letterhead to consumers nationwide.
The letters demanded thousands of dollars in payment purportedly for medical devices that some consumers received for past medical procedures, such as leg compression devices used to prevent blood clots after surgery.
The United States alleged that defendants had no authority to collect any debt from those consumers and that the debts for which defendants sought repayment were, in many cases, illusory — i.e., consumers did not actually owe the money, but many paid it anyway. The complaint further alleged that Christopher Parks and his co-defendants knew that the debt collection notices were fraudulent yet continued to harass consumers and demand payments.
According to court documents, Christopher Parks directed significant aspects of the scheme while spending time in prison on other healthcare fraud charges. For example, recorded telephone calls obtained from the facility where Parks had been incarcerated revealed that Parks directed Stephen Miller to switch names and operate under Assured Financial LLC instead of Assured Collections LLC after numerous consumers filed Better Business Bureau complaints accusing Assured Collections LLC of fraud.
Under the terms of their civil consent decrees, the defendants agreed to be permanently enjoined from, among other things, engaging in any future billing and debt collection activities and accepting any future payments from any consumer who received a debt collection notice from Assured Collections LLC or Assured Financial LLC.
Additionally, the defendants agreed to disclose the consent decrees to any current, prospective and/or future employee, employer, business partner, client or associate engaged in the healthcare or debt collection industries.
In an unrelated case brought by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Oklahoma, Christopher Parks was sentenced in October 2023 to 18 months in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to offer and pay health care kickbacks as part of a scheme where consumers were steered to obtain prescriptions from Parks-controlled compounding pharmacies.
Parks is also currently awaiting trial in the Eastern District of Texas on other federal criminal healthcare fraud charges stemming from his billing practices as the principal of a company called USA Medical.
