Disability fraud. I'm certain this is not an isolated incident. There has been a huge expansion in the numbers claiming disability payments

Crooked doc gets 8 years

‘Drove train’ in $1B LIRR pension scam

A doctor at the heart of the massive LIRR “gravy train” scandal was sentenced to eight years in federal prison yesterday for the audacious $1 billion pension scam — which the judge condemned as “a large pool of corruption.”

Dr. Peter Ajemian, 63, was also ordered to pay back $233 million for falsely diagnosing hundreds of greedy Long Island Rail Road workers with disabilities so they could retire early with sweet pensions. Manhattan federal court Judge Victor Marrero ripped into the orthopedist before throwing him in prison.

“[There] was a large pool of corruption and rather than helping to clean it up, Dr. Ajemian chose to jump in it. He sold his professional integrity to profit from it,” Marrero said.

BIG HOUSE:Dr. Peter Ajemian (above) can kiss his posh Long Island home (below) goodbye after being sentenced yesterday for disability fraud.

Dennis Clark

Ajemian pleaded guilty to conspiracy and health-care fraud in January. “It’s a matter of sincere regret that my career shall come to an end as it has. In my three decades as a surgeon and physician, I’m proud that I was able to accomplish all that I have,” Ajemian said in a brief statement with about 20 family members and friends sitting behind him.

“I hope to use the time I have remaining to redeem myself.”

Prosecutors said Ajemian ran a “disability-fraud mill” that recommended over 700 retiring LIRR employees get disability payments between the late 1990s and 2008.

During that same period, Ajemian declared as disabled an astounding 94 percent of the LIRR workers he saw — and the dishonest doctor pocketed $800 to $1,200 for each fraudulent diagnosis.

Prosecutors believe Ajemian — who lives in the affluent Long Island village of Oyster Bay — earned about $2.5 million with his scam.

“The fraud here is one of remarkable scope. It is one that reached into hundreds of millions of dollars,” assistant US federal prosecutor Daniel Tehrani said in court yesterday.

“He was a primary gatekeeper of that fraud. He betrayed the trust people have in doctors.”

Ajemian could have been sentenced to over 10 years behind bars, but the judge said he took the doctor’s decades of community service into account to arrive at the lighter sentence.

Many of the LIRR workers who scammed their way into the generous pensions spent their time playing golf and tennis or even went on to start second careers, prosecutors have said.

One railroad electrician who paid Ajemian $750 for a phony disability diagnosis was busted when he was filmed installing an underground irrigation system.

Prosecutors have charged 32 people in connection with the LIRR-disability fraud, and 23 have already pleaded guilty.