BLOOMFIELD HILLS, Mich. (WXYZ) — Dr. Rajendra Bothra was indicated last December along with five other doctors in an alleged pill mill scheme in Macomb County.
The federal government claims the physicians illegally prescribed millions of doses of opioids to patients and fraudulently billed millions to Medicare and Medicaid.
The six doctors are charged with Health Care Fraud Conspiracy, a 10-year felony.
Now, Dr. Bothra's attorney is pushing for his client to be released from the Milan Detention Center, where he's been since last December, and allowed to return home while he awaits trial.
The motion was filed in federal court Wednesday.
"He would be wearing a tracking device, he would be wearing a GPS tether, there would be motion detectors at all the outside doors and windows," said Dr. Bothra's attorney David Greim.
Greim said a retired federal agent would also be inside the home at all times, and infrared cameras would be installed to detect motion. Dr. Bothra would pay for all additions to the home out-of-pocket.
Dr. Bothra is the only defendant not out on bond according to his attorney. He has family in India; a judge deemed him a flight risk.
There’s hundreds of boxes of evidence in this case, Greim said his client doesn’t have room or privacy to review it all from jail.
“I don’t think that’s fair at all," said a woman near Dr. Bothra's gated neighborhood in Bloomfield Hills. She asked that we not use her name.
“Just because he has the money to kind of skirt his way out of the system, I don’t think that’s fair at all.”
Greim said none of the other inmates are preparing for a trial of this size, and that’s why his client, who is 78, deserves this consideration.
“They want even a greater advantage of us not to be able to prepare effectively for trial with Dr. Bothra.”
If a judge grants Dr. Bothra's request, additions to home could cost around $100,00 according to Greim, who maintains his client is innocent.
