United States of America v. James Shuford Price, III

Wilmington, North Carolina, criminal defense lawyer represented the Defendant charged with paying illegal kickbacks for referrals to his California-based lab and filing a false federal tax return.

Reported by Kent Morlan

James Shuford Price, III, 59, owned and operated Golden Star Labs (GSL), a laboratory facility in Los Angeles, California. Between August 2023 and June 2025, GSL submitted more than $85 million in false claims to Medi-Cal and more than $11 million in false claims to Medicare for multi-panel testing for SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19), Influenza A and B (the flu), and Respiratory Synctial Virus (RSV). The fake claims came from fraudulent test samples and resulted in Medi-Cal and Medicare’s disbursing of more than $60 million to GSL.

As part of the scheme, GSL engaged so-called “collectors” in California and elsewhere to source test specimens from Medi-Cal/Medicare beneficiaries. Under Price’s direction and control, GSL unlawfully induced the collectors to supply samples by compensating them, in whole or in part, based on the volume of samples provided to the lab. Between August 2023 and January 2025, GSL paid over $17 million to these collectors. In exchange, the collectors supplied GSL with bulk quantities of bogus test samples obtained under fraudulent circumstances, including widespread identity theft. GSL then systematically billed Medi-Cal and Medicare for testing the sham samples.

For example, in the first six months, approximately 96% of GSL’s Medi-Cal claims were fraudulent test authorizations from a single out-of-state physician whose personal identifiers were stolen and misapplied. In February 2024, Price purported to pause GSL’s testing operations for a month to “clean up” the billing issues. However, GSL went right back to it, basing its claims on fraudulent specimens provided by collectors after the lab resumed operations and billing in March 2024. From late March 2024 until January 2025, approximately 92% of GSL’s Medi-Cal claims were premised on phony test authorizations generated from the stolen personal information of five different clinicians.

During this same period, Price directed GSL to enter written contracts with collectors specifying a fixed fee for services and prohibiting payments based on the volume or value of referrals. These fake contracts were meant to give the false appearance that GSL was complying with the law. However, the same kickback scheme with GSL paying collectors on a per-specimen basis to induce referrals continued without regard to these phony contracts, resulting in millions of dollars in Medi-Cal/Medicare payouts to GSL.

During the investigation, the FBI worked with the U.S. Attorney’s Office to seize more than six million dollars in assets attributable to the fraud.

The FBI (Charlotte Field Office, Raleigh Resident Agency) investigated this case in partnership with IRS-CI (Charlotte Field Office), the U.S. HHS-OIG (Pacific Regional Office), and the California Department of Health Care Services, Investigations Division.

The Defendant elected to plead guilty and faces a statutory maximum of 13 years’ imprisonment, a $500,000 fine, and three years of supervised release. Price will also be required to pay restitution to the California Medical Assistance Program (Medi-Cal), the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and others.