The co-owner of a defunct Echo Park hospital was sentenced to more than three years in prison for his part in a kickback scheme in which healthy homeless people were recruited to receive government-paid procedures at the medical facility.

Robert Bourseau, 75, of downtown and Rancho Mirage, got 37 months in federal prison Monday for paying kickbacks to recruiters who went to Skid Row, picked up homeless people and took them to the City of Angeles Medical Center near Historic Filipinotown. The facility, under new ownership, is now called Silver Lake Medical Center.

Bourseau was also ordered to pay $4.1 million in restitution for his part in defrauding Medicare and Medi-Cal in the homeless-patient scheme. “Society must know that

those who abuse the health care system must answer for that conduct in court,” stated U.S. District Judge George H. King at sentencing.

Dante Nicholson, a former senior vice president at City of Angels, was also indicted in the scheme and faces sentencing in June. Another City of Angels co-owner, Rudra Sabaratnam, previously pleaded guilty to paying illegal kickbacks and faces an April sentencing date.

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