YOUNGSTOWN — Dr. Joni Canby, 62, of Poland, on Wednesday became the second of three area doctors to enter a guilty plea in U.S. District Court to receiving kickbacks in a scheme to defraud Medicare and Medicaid.

Canby pleaded guilty to conspiracy to solicit, receive, offer and pay kickbacks in connection to a federal health care program and receipt of kickbacks in connection with a federal health care program.

The case was referred to the U.S. Pretrial and Probation Department for preparation of a presentence report of her background. She will be sentenced 1 p.m. March 17 before Judge J. Philip Calabrese in Cleveland, who also accepted her guilty plea Wednesday. She has been free on a personal recognizance bond, and that bond was continued Wednesday.

Dr. Michelle Kapon, 42, of Youngstown, a family medicine practitioner, was the first of the three to enter a guilty plea in the case. She pleaded guilty to conspiracy to solicit, receive, offer and pay kickbacks in connection with a federal health care program and two counts of receiving kickbacks in connection to a federal healthcare program. Kapon entered her guilty plea in February.

The remaining doctor charged is Samir Wahib, 53, of Canfield. Wahib and Canby are obstetrician-gynecologists.

Federal prosecutors said the doctors attempted to obtain reimbursement for testing that was not medically necessary.

Wahib also is charged with obstruction of a criminal investigation of federal health care offenses, as well as four additional counts of paying kickbacks in connection with a federal health care program.

Wahib is accused of conspiring, from March 2014 through January 2017, to pay kickbacks to Canby and Kapon to induce them to order gonorrhea and chlamydia testing to be performed by Wahib on specimens of Canby’s and Kapon’s patients.

Wahib allegedly then billed and was paid by the federal government for the testing.

“These defendants are physicians accused of orchestrating a scheme to defraud a taxpayer-funded health care benefit program created to assist vulnerable populations,” Bridget Brennan, acting U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, stated at the time indictments were issued.

“Their alleged conduct … was designed specifically to enrich themselves.”

“The payment of kickbacks is a corrupt and illegal practice that inappropriately influences an individual or entity’s capacity to make unbiased decisions, which is of particular concern in the health care environment,” said Lamont Pugh III, special agent in charge of the Chicago region office of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, Office of Inspector General.

“Kickbacks can result in the overutilization of diagnostic testing and other services that ultimately lead to an increase in program costs, waste valuable taxpayer dollars and can expose patients to medically unnecessary services.”

“Subjecting patients to unnecessary tests is bad medicine,” Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost stated in a news release.

erunyan@vindy.com