A California doctor accused of fraudulently charging $45 million in Botox claims to Medicare has been convicted, federal prosecutors say.
A jury found Violetta Mailyan, 45, of Glendale, guilty of nine counts of wire fraud and three counts of obstruction of a criminal investigation of a healthcare offense, the United States Department of Justice said in a Tuesday, May 19, news release.
Mailyan was initially indicted on nine counts of wire fraud in October, pleaded not guilty to all the charges, City News Service reported in December.
“Violetta Mailyan falsely diagnosed patients, fraudulently billed for Botox injections while she was actually on lavish vacations, and tried to trick federal agents with fake records,” Assistant Attorney General Colin M. McDonald of the Justice Department’s National Fraud Enforcement Division said in the release.
What prosecutors say happened
Mailyan owned and operated Healthy Way Medical Center in Glendale, a clinic that offered beauty and cosmetic services, according to an October indictment.
An investigation into Mailyan began after the Health Care Fraud Section’s Data Analytics Team identified her as an “extreme outlier among doctors receiving Medicare payments for Botox, having at the time been paid more than $24 million over the previous four years — six times the next highest group of providers, all of whom were neurologists,” prosecutors said.
Mailyan started billing fraudulent Botox charges to Medicare starting in or around January 2019, officials said in the indictment. Between that time and August 2025, Mailyan is accused of billing about $45 million in false and fraudulent claims to Medicare for Botox injections, of which Medicare paid nearly $33 million.
Medicare reimburses medical providers for Botox injections if they are used in documented cases of chronic migraines, prosecutors said.
“For Botox to be covered by Medicare, the physician was required to establish that the patient had been unresponsive to conventional methods such as medication, physical therapy, and other appropriate measures to control or treat spastic conditions,” officials said in the indictment.
Documentation of the failed treatment attempts is necessary, according to officials, who added that Botox injection for the treatment of skin wrinkles is cosmetic and not covered by Medicare.
Mailyan, however, treated patients who were not referred to her clinic by a doctor for the purpose of treating chronic migraines and provided them with Botox injections that were purely cosmetic, according to prosecutors.
Mailyan also billed and received payments for injections that were never provided, prosecutors said.
“For example, the evidence at trial showed that Mailyan billed for providing Botox injections when she was actually on vacation in Cabo, Mexico; Maui, Hawaii; Las Vegas; Pennsylvania; and New York,” prosecutors said.
Mailyan is also accused of billing Medicare for a patient who, at the time, was in federal prison, according to prosecutors. She also billed Medicare for thousands of injections, totaling more than $19 million, which were provided on days when her clinic was closed.
Additionally, evidence showed Mailyan backdated some claims and billed for injections before patients even contacted her clinic for an appointment, prosecutors said, adding that she also “fabricated patient medical records, including patient consent forms, to make it appear as if patients suffered from chronic migraines and had received treatment for those migraines in her office.”
Prosecutors said that evidence presented at trial also showed that as “investigators were closing in” on Mailyan’s case, she tried “to cover up her crimes.”
After Mailyan received a grand jury subpoena seeking medical records, she is accused of altering patient records such that it looked as if patients received the Botox injections for chronic migraines when those services had not been provided, prosecutors said. Then, Mailyan turned over the altered documents to federal agents.
Evidence presented at trial showed Mailyan used the funds from Medicare to fund a lavish lifestyle, including to pay for vacations to Mexico and Hawaii and buy luxury collectable goods, such as a $12,000 17th century crossbow and a $3,000 painting, according to prosecutors.
What happens next?
After the jury returned a guilty verdict, they also found that a number of items in Mailyan’s possession were subject to forfeiture, including a Tesla Model X, a Tesla Cybertruck, $251,124 in funds across multiple bank accounts, brokerage accounts valued at $7,312,037, and four properties in Surfside and Glendale, California, with combined estimated equity of $7,343,636, prosecutors said.
Mailyan is scheduled to appear in court for sentencing Sept. 10, when she faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison for each count of wire fraud and five years in prison for each count of obstruction,” prosecutors said.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: California doctor convicted in $45M Medicare Botox fraud case, feds say
Reporting by Daniella Segura, USA TODAY NETWORK / Palm Springs Desert Sun
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
