The state Supreme Court on Monday declined to dismiss criminal charges against an Atlanta doctor charged with defrauding Medicaid for medical tests and services related to abortions.
The unanimous ruling means the case against OB/GYN Tyrone Cecil Malloy, who has pleaded not guilty, will proceed to trial in DeKalb County Superior Court.
Malloy has practiced medicine in Georgia for more than three decades and is the medical director of the Atlanta SurgiCenter, where he has been providing abortion services for 20 years. His primary practice, Metropolitan Atlanta ObGyn, is located in Decatur, and he has another clinic, Old National Gynecology, in College Park.
In a prior statement to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Malloy said the state is pursuing a political agenda by prosecuting him. The case is not about fraud or deceit, he said, but abortions.
The state Attorney General’s Office has disagreed, calling its prosecution a straightforward case of Medicaid fraud.
In December 2011, the office obtained an indictment from a DeKalb grand jury accusing Malloy of illegally accepting $131,615 in Medicaid payments for elective abortion services and $255,024 for ultrasound services that were never performed.
The case is unusual because the indictment was issued more than a year after a state administrative law judge found that Malloy had not committed fraud. Instead of appealing that judge’s ruling, the state chose to seek criminal charges against Malloy.
Malloy’s lawyers had argued the the administrative law judge’s decision precluded a subsequent criminal proceeding. But the state Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision written by Justice Hugh Thompson, said the administrative law judge’s ruling was civil in nature and had no such effect.
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