I-Team Update: Valley cosmetic surgeon behind multi-million-dollar fraud case now extradited from Israel
A Rancho Mirage cosmetic surgeon who pleaded guilty in a multi-million-dollar insurance scheme was extradited from Israel to Santa Ana, California last night, according to the United States Attorney's Office.
David Morrow has been on the run for months after he accepted a plea deal in federal court to charges including fraud. According to federal prosecutors, Morrow bilked insurance companies out of tens of millions of dollars by charging them for tummy tucks and other cosmetic surgery by calling them “medically necessary procedures.”
Weeks before his scheduled sentencing in 2017, authorities were alerted that Morrow and his wife Linda had moved out of his multimillion-dollar home in Beverly Hills, and was no longer responsive to requests of the court.
Morrow was sentenced to 20 years in prison in absentia.
The News Channel I-Team was first to report the Morrows' capture. In June of 2019, the Morrows were apprehended at their home in Ashkelon, Israel.
According to federal prosecutors, Morrow bilked insurance companies out of tens of millions of dollars by charging them for tummy tucks and other cosmetic surgery by calling them “medically necessary procedures.”
“Ms. Morrow entered Israel with a forged (Mexican) passport and remained in Israel illegally. Subsequently, she was deported back to the U.S.” said Efrat Oran, spokeswoman for the Jerusalem District.
Last November, the attorney representing former Rancho Mirage plastic surgeon David Morrow says if a petition expected to be filed with the Israeli Minister of Justice is denied, he will consider taking the case to the Israel Supreme Court.
Attorney Nick Kaufman told News Channel 3 last fall that his client, “helped many. Judge Josephine Stanton (Morrow’s sentencing judge in the U.S.), we believe, was influenced in sentencing by wholly irrelevant factors concerning the alleged and totally denied harm caused to patients. The only crime imputed to him has been one of medical insurance fraud and NOT gross medical negligence.”
Ahead on News Channel 3 at Noon on FOX and KESQ, we'll have a live report on what comes next.
