00:00Strong reaction from the Armenian community after this, Dr. Oz calling Los Angeles the epicenter for healthcare fraud, the head
00:07of Medicare and Medicaid blaming Russian and Armenian Mafia.
00:11Fox 11, Susan here as soon as joining us live in Van Nuys where Dr. Oz focused those claims. Susan.
00:18Yeah, Christine, and I'm standing not far away from where Dr. Oz pointed up to that second story business and
00:24claimed that that was a sham business connected to this healthcare fraud.
00:28And then saying that the Russian Armenian Mafia was operating that kind of fraud.
00:35Well, Armenian groups came out today and said, that's racist.
00:40In this four block area in Los Angeles, there are 42 hospices.
00:45So either there are a lot of people dying here or you've got a fraudulent activity that is so good
00:50that everyone wants to get in on it.
00:51The former TV doctor, Oz, now the head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, drove down Victory Boulevard in
00:57Van Nuys.
00:58You can see these are medical buildings. They've got Cyrillic writing, Russian-Armenian writing.
01:05Both sides, there's lots of action.
01:09Oz claims the healthcare fraud in L.A. has cost the federal government three and a half billion dollars.
01:14It's run, quite a bit of it, by the Russian-Armenian Mafia.
01:18You notice the lettering and language behind me is that dialect.
01:22Disgusted.
01:23That's Edward Akparyan on his office balcony.
01:26But in Dr. Oz's video, he's blurred and he feels it's made to look as if he's part of the
01:31alleged healthcare fraud.
01:33In fact, he sells real estate.
01:35It's neighborhood. We know each other. Everybody knows each other.
01:38You know, never heard anything like that.
01:40And I was surprised. I was very, you know, surprised when I heard that.
01:44On Google Maps, each dot suggests the concentration of hospice companies.
01:48But because Oz never names even one, it's difficult to figure out if there are indeed sham businesses here.
01:54The Armenian Bar Association sent letters to Senator Adam Schiff and Representative Laura Friedman
02:00to applaud Oz's mission to root out fraud, but not at the expense of Armenian Americans.
02:05To vilify an entire ethnicity, a community, a community that's very proud to be American, by the way,
02:12it is truly beyond the pale and completely unconstitutional.
02:17And this image some find particularly harmful.
02:19The bakery is actually closed, but the nearby market is owned by the same person.
02:23And the claim is that the Dr. Oz video is harming his business.
02:27A business is down now 30 percent. Poor guy, small businessman, saying they're somehow connected
02:33to the mob around hospice. Well, hospice, we've been after that for years and years before
02:39Oz was even on the scene.
02:42The motives are to hit the Armenian community in L.A., and we will not stand for it.
02:48Well, Garen went on to tell me that he believes the reason why Dr. Oz targeted Armenian Americans
02:54is because they objected to his run for Senate and successfully squashed that run.
03:01They also objected to his support of President, Turkish President Erdogan.
03:06Reporting live in Van Nuys, I'm Susan Hirasuna, Fox 11 News.
03:09Very interesting. Thank you, Susan.
Comments