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Kirk out, con game over. Authorities in Brooklyn say a fraudster turned to classic TV as inspiration for his tablet, which could purportedly deliver patient data.
Are you out of your Vulcan mind?
Brooklyn prosecutors charged a fraudster with conning a company out of $ 800,000 by pitching a health-care device modeled after Dr. Bones McCoy’s tricorder on “Star Trek.”
The feds don’t believe the device exists, but Howard Leventhal was able to convince the company that he had signed a lucrative deal with Canada’s Department of Health for Heltheo’s McCoy Home Health Tablet.
Heltheo is one of Leventhal’s companies and the name McCoy refers to the fictional doctor of the Starship Enterprise on the TV series, prosecutors said.
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Leventhal’s device purported to “instantly and effectively” deliver patient data to physicians and health care providers, according to the complaint unsealed in Brooklyn Federal Court.
AP
The real McCoy? Bones McCoy (center), played by Eugene Kelly on “Star Trek,” was the inspirational in the latest fraud using science fiction tech.
His Health Technologies Corp. website also allegedly claimed that “McCoy” was monitored “24/7/365 by the company’s nurse-staffed call center.”
“In reality, his scheme was pure science fiction, complete with phony documents and a fictional medical device,” said Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch.
The handheld prop used by DeForest Kelley, in his role as Spock’s frequent antagonist McCoy, could make an instantaneous diagnosis of what ailed a patient or alien.
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Leventhal even created an “alternate reality,” Lynch noted, by impersonating Canadian government officials and fabricating bank documents falsely showing more than $ 10 million in payments from Health Canada to another Leventhal enterprise last spring.
He is also accused of forging the signature of Glenda Yeates, Canada’s then-deputy minister of health, on a document he faxed to Paragon Financial Group in Florida as part of the scheme to raise money.
KIRSTY WIGGLESWORTH/AP
A tricorder prop used in “Insurrection,” a “Star Trek” production.
The statements were sent to a federal agent in Brooklyn posing as a prospective investor, according to the complaint.
Leventhal, 56, was arrested Tuesday morning by FBI agents at his home in Illinois. He was released on $ 100,000 bail and ordered to appear next Wednesday in Brooklyn Federal Court.
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Court records show Leventhal filed for bankruptcy in 2010 and listed more than $ 1 million in debts.
His LinkedIn page says he is a licensed pilot, has a black belt in tae kwon do and speaks five languages besides English.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police contacted authorities in the U.S. after learning of the alleged scam.
Leventhal’s phone was apparently disconnected and he could not be reached for comment.
The McCoy tablet was supposedly made in Taiwan, but law enforcement officials have no evidence that it worked as it claimed — although Leventhal was observed carrying a tablet device.
