{"id":5735,"date":"2026-10-07T18:20:29","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T23:20:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/directsourcenews.org\/index.php\/2026\/10\/07\/houston-doctor-charged-in-30m-covid-fraud-scheme\/"},"modified":"2026-10-07T18:20:31","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T23:20:31","slug":"houston-doctor-charged-in-30m-covid-fraud-scheme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/directsourcenews.org\/index.php\/2026\/10\/07\/houston-doctor-charged-in-30m-covid-fraud-scheme\/","title":{"rendered":"Houston Doctor Charged in $30M COVID Fraud Scheme"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <div class=\"lazyload smush-lazyload-video smush-lazyload-youtube\" style=\"--smush-video-aspect-ratio: 858\/483\" data-bg-image=\"url(https:\/\/directsourcenews.org\/wp-admin\/admin-ajax.php?action=smush_video_thumbnail&#038;url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fembed%2FPE-JpdyU_r8%3Ffeature%3Doembed&#038;video_width=858&#038;video_height=483)\" ><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Houston family doctor arrested, indicted in connection with over 20 million Medicare fraud, FBI says\" width=\"858\" height=\"483\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/PE-JpdyU_r8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen src=\"about:blank\"><\/iframe><span class=\"smush-play-btn\" role=\"button\" aria-label=\"Play video\">\r\n\t\t\t\t<span tabindex=\"0\" class=\"smush-play-btn-inner\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t<span>Play<\/span>\r\n\t\t\t\t<\/span>\r\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/div> HOUSTON, TX \u2013 October 7, 2026 (STL.News) Houston \u2013 Fraud Scheme \u2013 A Houston physician has been arrested and indicted on federal charges alleging he participated in a scheme that billed approximately $30 million to a federal COVID-19 reimbursement program for medical office visits prosecutors say were never provided. Dr. Joseph A. Montes, 66, was taken into federal custody after a grand jury returned a 12-count indictment Sept. 30, according to the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office for the Southern District of Texas. The indictment was subsequently unsealed. Montes made his initial appearance Oct. 6 before U.S. Magistrate Judge Christina<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.stl.news\/houston-doctor-charged-in-30m-covid-fraud-scheme\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Read Original Article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>HOUSTON, TX \u2013 October 7, 2026 (STL.News) Houston \u2013 Fraud Scheme \u2013 A Houston physician has been arrested and indicted on federal charges alleging he participated in a scheme that billed approximately $30 million to a federal COVID-19 reimbursement program&#8230; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5736,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/directsourcenews.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/directsourcenews.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/directsourcenews.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/directsourcenews.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/directsourcenews.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5735"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/directsourcenews.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5735\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5737,"href":"https:\/\/directsourcenews.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5735\/revisions\/5737"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/directsourcenews.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/directsourcenews.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/directsourcenews.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/directsourcenews.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}