An Orange County physical therapist has sued his former boss at a Yonkers clinic for $1.2 million for allegedly entangling him in a tax mess and a racketeering case.
Bervin N. Brual, of Highland Mills, accused Richard G. Harvey of fraud and unjust enrichment in a complaint filed Oct. 4 in U.S. District Court, White Plains.
Harvey “hid what was going on” from Brual, the complaint states, “so his fraud … would not be exposed.”
Harvey, of Boca Raton, Florida, said in a brief telephone conversation that he is unaware of the lawsuit and he has no comment.
In 2011, Brual went to work at the Harvey Family Chiropractic, Physical Therapy & Acupuncture PLLC on North Broadway in Yonkers. At some point, and “for reasons unknown,” according to the complaint, Brual was made a 2% owner even though he was still paid as an employee.
He left the clinic in 2015 and was lured back in 2016 with the promise of higher pay, the complaint states. In 2020, Harvey formed North Broadway Chiropractic & Physical Therapy PLLC, made Brual a 20% owner, and paid him a $100,000 bonus at the end of the year.
Brual says that when he did his taxes for 2020 he discovered that Harvey had falsely reported his income as $500,000 and caused a $200,000 tax liability.
At the end of 2021, Harvey allegedly reported Brual’s income at more than $700,000 and caused a $290,000 tax liability.
The complaint does not say how much Brual was actually paid in those years but he claims he confronted Harvey about the discrepancies and he received checks totaling $280,000.
After Harvey sold the clinic at the end of 2021, Brual’s new supervisor told him that insurance companies were no longer paying for his physical therapy services.
Brual discovered that Allstate Insurance had filed a racketeering lawsuit in Brooklyn federal court in December 2016 naming him, Harvey and acupuncturist Jin Hwangbo, and accusing them of fraudulent billing under New York’s no-fault automobile insurance law.
Insurers are required to pay for reasonable and necessary medical expenses resulting from car accidents, but for each service that is billed the practitioner must be licensed in that specialty and must be a member of the professional corporation.
Allstate charged that Brual and Hwangbo were sham owners of the clinic, and that Harvey had used their names and licenses to illegally submit claims for payments.
In 2018, a federal magistrate judge recommended that Harvey, Hwangbo and Brual be held jointly liable for more than $1.3 million in damages.
In 2019, the parties settled and the case was dismissed.
Brual claims he knew nothing about the Allstate lawsuit: he never saw the complaint, he did not participate in the defense or in the settlement, and Harvey retained the defense attorney.
Brual is still liable for about $280,000 “upon income he never made” according to the complaint, and he has worked out a payment plan with the IRS.
He is accusing Harvey of misrepresenting his ownership in the clinic and misrepresenting his salary and tax liability.
Brual is represented by Manhattan attorney Jeffrey Benjamin.
