NEW YORK A Washington, D.C., political consultant, a former federal employee and three others have been charged with using confidential information from within a U.S. health agency to engage in an insider trading scheme.Federal prosecutors on Wednesday unsealed an indictment in Manhattan federal court against political consultant David Blaszczak, founder of Precipio Health Strategies; former U.S. Department of Health and Human Services employee Christopher Worrall; and Rob Olan and Ted Huber, listed as employees on the website of health care hedge fund Deerfield Management.Jordan Fogel, a former Deerfield Management employee who was also charged, pleaded guilty on Friday, according to a spokesman for acting U.S. Attorney Joon Kim in Manhattan.Prosecutors allege that from 2012 to 2014, Worrall delivered confidential information that would effect stock prices regarding pending reimbursements from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to Blaszczak, a friend and former colleague. They allege that Blaszczak would then sell the information to Olan, Huber and Fogel who prosecutors say made nearly $4 million in trades off of it. The agency alleges that Blaszczak was paid $193,000 over a year and a half for the information.The Department of Health and Human Service’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services division oversees government health insurance plans. According to the court papers, the confidential information included advance notice about regulations of radiation cancer treatment and dialysis, allowing Deerfield to trade in health care companies affected by the rules.The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said on Wednesday that it had filed a separate complaint against Blaszczak, Worrall, Huber and Fogel over the alleged scheme.Lawyers for the defendants could not immediately be reached for comment. Deerfield, which is not charged, also could not be reached.In 2005, Blaszczak also worked at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in Baltimore. He also worked as a consultant on implementation of the Medicare Modernization Act. Olan and Huber are both partners at Deerfield Management trading on health care companies with backgrounds in biotechnology and health care policy. Worrall, a senior technical adviser at DHHS, won a federal government award in 2009 for his work leading the development of an online program used to fill drug prescriptions of uninsured people affected by major disasters.
