The husband of "The View" co-host Sunny Hostin has been accused of participating in an insurance fraud scheme along with more than 180 defendants in a RICO case filed in New York on December 17.
Orthopedic surgeon Dr. Emmanuel "Manny" Hostin are accused of receiving kickbacks by performing surgery and fraudulently billing a company that insures taxis, Uber, and Lyft drivers, the Daily Mail reports.
In the suit filed in federal court in Brooklyn, Dr. Hostin, 54, is named as the owner of Hostin Orthopaedics, working out of an eighth-floor office on Lexington Avenue close to Manhattan’s Grand Central Terminal.
American Transit claims ‘rampant’ insurance fraud is endemic in New York State thanks to its ‘No-Fault Law’ under which insurers must pay up to $50,000 for medical expense for people injured in road accidents.
‘These substantial possible no-fault recoveries can incentivize providers with ill intent to over-diagnose, over-treat, and over-bill to recover the most money for themselves,’ American Transit said in a statement.
"Hostin knowingly provided fraudulent medical and other healthcare services including arthroscopic surgeries," reads the lawsuit, which claims the insurance firm American Transit was billed "in exchange for kickbacks and/or other compensation which were disguised as dividends or other cash distributions."
Hostin's attorney Daniel Thwaites told the outlet that his client "denies each and every allegation," and claims that the lawsuit is a "blanket, scattershot, meritless lawsuit by a near-bankrupt insurance carrier."
Thwaites further claimed that the insurance company was intentionally "abusing the legal system" in an attempt to "restrict health care benefits to its insureds and their passengers, and write off its proper obligations."
"It is meant to intimidate and harass doctors from collecting for care given to American Transit insureds and their passengers," he continued. "American Transit has rushed into the lawsuit without ever conducting an examination of Dr. Hostin or expressing any concerns to his lawyers."
The 'no-fault recovery' law was introduced in 1974, 'in the wake of rapidly rising automobile insurance costs and when accident victims were experiencing long delays in compensation,' American Transit said in a statement.
But taxis and ride-share vehicles are now required to pay up to $200,000 – four times the coverage for private drivers.
‘This has put a target on the backs of livery vehicles, and the insurance companies which insure them, for unsavory person seeking to capitalize on payouts following injuries.’
‘In the aggregate, those abusing the No-Fault Law have racked up hundreds of millions in fraudulent payments, destabilized the livery insurance market in New York City, increased premiums for hard working taxi-can and livery drivers, and harmed the public.’
American Transit is seeking more than $450 million in damages in the case. -Daily Mail
The Hostins have been married for nearly 25 years, and live in a massive 10-bed, 10-bath estate in Purchase, New York. Sunny, a former prosecutor, is senior legal correspondent and analyst for ABC News, along with co-hosting The View. She recently compared the Jan. 6 2021 riot to slavery and the holocaust.
