Former Reditus Labs CEO Aaron Rossi has pleaded guilty to charges of health care and wire fraud in federal court.
In an unscheduled plea hearing before Judge Sara Darrow in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois on Wednesday, the 41-year old Rossi signed a 25-page plea agreement. According to the agreement, reviewed by WCBU, he faces a maximum 30 years in prison for the fraud charges.
Federally, health care fraud sentencing is capped at 10 years of prison time, while wire fraud is capped at 20 years. Additionally, the sentence could bring fines of a maximum $500,000, or twice the amount of monetary gain or loss caused by the fraud.
The charges also carry a maximum three years of supervised release.
As part of the signed agreement, Rossi also agreed to forfeit a 2017 Liberty Coach Elegant Lady, a luxury RV that can cost anywhere from $300,000 to more than $1 million. The agreement document explains the RV's forfeiture is a substitute for a fine, but does not preclude any applicable court restitution.
In addition, the plea agreement includes a stipulation that Rossi cannot file a motion to return any property seized by the government, as well as an allowance for the destruction of any items seized by investigating agencies on the case.
The agreement also requires Rossi to complete 100 hours of community service whenever he is released from prison.
The charges stem from hundreds of thousands of dollars prosecutors say Rossi obtained from the state by overcharging for COVID-19 tests performed by the now defunct Reditus Labs during the pandemic. The payments for those tests came from public and private health insurance programs, including Medicare, Medicaid, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois and others.
The plea comes a little under a month before Rossi was scheduled for a trial.
Before the legal battles began, the Pekin-based Reditus pathology laab found a lucrative opportunity for profiting off medical testing in the COVID-19 pandemic. The business crumbled under the weight of lawsuits from Rossi’s former business partners that are still making their way through civil state and federal courts.
The businesses partners alleged Rossi flagrantly misused the Reditus profits to fund an extravagant lifestyle, while cutting their own access. The lawsuits describe the purchase of a private jet and numerous cars, assets that would later appear in federal fraud charges.
Rossi also faces a federal charge for allegedly sneaking synthetic marijuana and other prohibited items into the Peoria County Jail. Court records indicate a plea hearing has happened in that case, but an agreement was not immediately available.
A trial for the contraband charges was previously scheduled for May.
Rossi will remain in custody of the U.S. marshals until he appears in federal court again for sentencing for both the fraud and contraband cases on July 15. He is required to serve 85% of his sentence under federal law.
Rossi is currently serving a five-year sentence for a separate mail fraud case related to misconduct during his former employment at Central Illinois Orthopedic Surgery in Bloomington.
A message left with Rossi's attorney was not immediately returned.
