Jersey City doctor accused in $500K kickback scheme is acquitted

A Jersey City doctor has been acquitted in an alleged $500,000 referral kickback scheme, weeks after the mayor of West New York was acquitted of similar charges, according to court documents.

John Fritz, of Jersey City, a family physician with a practice in the city, had been charged with second-degree health care claims fraud, second-degree commercial bribery and third-degree running.

In June 2015, authorities accused Fritz of referring approximately 4,500 scans to Diagnostic Imaging Affiliates centers for approximately $500,000 in kickbacks from 2006 through 2013.

The owner of Diagnostic Imaging Affiliates, Rehan Zuberi, of Boonton, pleaded guilty in May 2015 to paying millions in bribes and kickbacks to dozens of doctors from 2008 to 2014. Zuberi's wife also pleaded guilty in the scheme.

Fritz, whose first trial ended in a hung jury, was acquitted of the commercial bribery charge on Jan. 12 in a non-jury trial in front of Hudson County Superior Court Judge Mitzy Galis-Menendez. The other two charges were dismissed, according to court records.

Attorney Howard Brownstein, of Union City, who represented Fritz, declined to comment on the verdict.

Roque, the West New York mayor who is also a pain management doctor, was acquitted on Dec. 21 of commercial bribery. Like Fritz, charges of "running" and healthcare fraud against Roque were dismissed.

Roque was charged less than a week after Fritz in 2015.

Zuberi testified in the trials, but his credibility took huge hits when attorneys pointed out that two years would be taken his sentence if he implicated no less than five doctors and that he had been convicted in the 1990s of similar crimes.

Three of the four doctors accused along with Fritz -- Alexander G. Salerno, of West Orange; Davarajan Iyengar, of Livingston, and Dr. Alan P. Epstein, of Manalapan -- were accepted into the pre-trial intervention program.

The disposition of the case against the fourth doctor, William M. Steck Sr., of West Orange, could not immediately be determined.