White Color Crimes Mean Bad Medicine
By Susan Motander
Published: Thursday, December 31st, 2009
Two of the highest profile white color crimes in this area were perpetrated by doctors, at least doctors of a sort. Monrovia’s Mini Madoff was Mark Colasuonno, the so called Tax Doctor and Duarte medical doctor, Daniel J. Healey, was arrested for the illegal sale of drugs. Both cases were largely the work of Monrovia detectives, the first in conjunction with the District Attorney’s Fraud Investigators and the second with federal Drug Enforcement Agents.
Beacon Media’s requests to photograph Mark Colasuonno in court as well as those for booking photos from the Monrovia Police Department were repeatedly denied. But that didn’t stop us. Colasuonno's attorney, Sumpba Kedia, is pictured here leading the former “Tax Doctor” away from our cameras on Tuesday morning outside the Pasadena Superior Court. Later than morning, Colasuonno was arrested and led away in handcuffs. - Photo by Terry Miller
The Monrovia Weekly first broke the story of Monrovia Mini Madoff as the result of looking into a story about tax preparation in January of this year. After contacting the Tax Doctor, a Monrovia firm once owned by Colasuonno, the whole story came together. By that time, Mark Colasuonno had sold the Tax Doctor to an accountant. Michael Di Pietro is the new Tax Doctor. He is not associated with Mark Colasuonno in any way. By that time Colasuonno had already been arrested on charges that he embezzled more than $150,000 from clients. He was first released on his own recognizance.
Slowly during the year several of Colasuonno’s victims stepped forward to tell their stories. The victims included Paige and Frank Lopez who lost the money they had inherited from an uncle. They subsequently lost their home. Next Marie Greco contacted this newspaper after reading about Mark Colasuonno, the Tax Doctor and his arrest. She related the story of how she and her husband had also become victims of this Mini Madoff. Along with preparing their taxes, Colasuonno also advised them on investing some of their retirement funds. He allegedly manipulated the funds so that they ended up without those moneys.
Colasuonno appeared in court on August 11 for the beginning of his trial on the first charges, but was rearrested at time on additional charges which included 470(a) Forgery, 368(d) Fiduciary Abuse of an Elder, and 487(a) Grand Theft. These charges were a result of Colasuonno’s dealings with the Grecos. This time Colasuonno was held on bail.
On Friday, August 28, after changing his plea to “no contest,” Colasuonno was sentenced to four years in state prison and ordered to pay $3,222,535.91 in restitution to 19 of his victims. Unfortunately since Colasuonno has said that he has no funds, it may be difficult for those victims to recoup their losses. However, by September of this year, the attorney for at least two of the victims, the Lopez brothers indicated that they would be bringing a civil suit against Monrovia’s so called Mini Madoff. The September 3 print edition of this paper has complete details of the sentencing.
On February 10, 2009, the problems of the other bad doctor arose. Daniel J. Healey was arrested on that day by DEA agents who had developed the case against the Duarte physician with the help of both the Monrovia Police Department and California’s Pharmaceutical Board. He was charged with dispensing large amounts of controlled substances without even examining the individuals. Records revealed that he had ordered more than 1 million hydrocodone pills in 2008 alone. Refer to the print editions of February 12 and 19 of this paper for complete details of the charges.
Healey is still in custody to date. He entered a guilty plea to one of the charges and is awaiting sentencing. According to Monrovia police detective Rich Doney, Healey is scheduled to be sentence in February and will face asset forfeiture and may face as much as 20 years in prison.
Colasuonno, the Tax Doctor is currently in State prison. He is still facing addition civil litigation in conjunction with his operations. Healey, Duarte’s Dirty Drug Doctor is sitting in federal custody awaiting sentencing of up to 20 years. The consequences of white color crime, at least in this area, can be a bitter pill to swallow.
2 Responses for “White Color Crimes Mean Bad Medicine”
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I think you mean “white collar” crime.
..or perhaps in these cases, “white coat crime”.