Handle with Medicare- Lexie Gehrke and Jeffery King

This week we discuss a Fox-news anchor lookalike and Wish Pitbull Lexie Gehrke and Jeffery King who through pretty blatant Medicare fraud exploited the sick and dying to enrich themselves for almost $1 Billion. Find out how Lexie Pickles got herself into one on this upsetting episode!

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
Wall Street veteran Bernard Madoff has been arrested and
charged with running a $50 billion Ponzi scheme.
Congress wants to know what caused the Enron meltdown, and
while the collective range currently is focused on
Worldcom. Tyco CEO Dennis Koslowski was
convicted of looting hundreds ofmillions of dollars.
This is one of the biggest fraudcases ever.

(00:23):
Their president's a crook. Well, I'm not a crook.
Find out more on this week's episode of White Collar's Red
Hands. Although we do not have
universal healthcare here in theUnited States, there are still
government programs that do assist some qualifying Americans
and help provide them healthcare.
For those who are disabled or over the age of 65, the

(00:44):
government provides Medicare. 67.7 million Americans are
enrolled in Medicare as of October 2024.
Over 89% of those enrolled in Medicare are over the age of 65.
With a system so large, with so many people enrolled in it, it's

(01:04):
easy for things to go unnoticed or for things to fall through
the cracks. That's what happened on this
week's story. Alexandra Gerke and Jeffrey King
banked on Medicare not doing their checks and balances,
meanwhile defrauding the government program almost a
billion dollars. How did they do it?
Find out on this week's episode of White Collars, Red Hands.

(01:29):
Don't you have to be, well, I guess most of the time, don't
you like it's a requirement to be over 65 to to get Medicare
unless you have a specific like disability.
Yeah, that's what I said. Yeah.
You either have to be over the age of 65 or have a like serious
disability you. Said like 89% of them are, but I
didn't know if the other 11% constitution.

(01:49):
They would be the. They would be the disabled.
Collectively term capital, the capital disabled.
All right, got it. What?
What? There would be disabled people.
I'm not trying to cancel you right now, no.
I don't know. He's trying to cancel.
I'm not. Saying anything like that, why

(02:10):
do you why do you want to be? If there's stuff that you could
be cancelled for 9, it's not this.
I was gonna say I have way more cancellable things I've said.
Anyone who's got to episode 175 or whatever this is, they know.
They know. Oh, they know if they.
Listen to the other ones. There's some, there's some stuff
in there all right. Oh absolutely, I've said some
heinous shit. This isn't going near a a a

(02:33):
resume of yours anytime soon. What?
This podcast. I put it on resumes but.
You're like comedy resume or something.
Yeah, OK, you're not going to show up to like I teach
children. Listen to all oh God, listen to
these episode. Listen to these episodes.
You get a feel of how I am as first.
It's no, it's nowhere near my education resumes.

(02:54):
No, no, no, no, no. Exactly.
And on that note, welcome back to another episode of White
Collar, Red Hands. I'm Kashan.
And I'm Nina and this week we are talking about Alexandra
Gerke, who last name is spelled so strangely, and Jeffrey.
Is it like pickle related? It looks.

(03:15):
Like wouldn't that be a Gherkin?Well, it looks like Gherkin.
I don't know, there can be slight, you know, Maybe it's a
different name for pickle in another language.
Maybe if she had been involved in Pickles, maybe she wouldn't
find herself in a pickle. I'm going.
What's her first? Name Alexandra.
I'm calling her Alex Alex Pickles from here on out.
OK, go ahead. OK, because she actually goes
and. I can do what I want.

(03:36):
She actually goes by Lexi, but that's fine.
OK, Lexi Pickles is. That's fine by me, Yeah.
That's fine. All right.
Let's see what trouble these twogot into.
So Lexi is actually a native of Arizona.
I'm from there. A fellow Arizonan right here.
Her mother, Joan, was an artist and her father, Robert, was a
lawyer. Lexi followed in her mother's

(03:56):
footsteps and tried to make up it as a portrait artist.
She began showing her art in LA in 2005, and in 2008, she opened
her own gallery called Pop Lock Gallery.
Pop Lock and Drop It is more like it.
She was successful and she opened a second gallery that
same year called Bang Gallery. Now also she gets just loves

(04:19):
onomatopoeia for some reason. When you say portrait like of
people like like how noblemen, yes used to get their paintings
done to hang over their mantels.Yes.
If you wanted that done, you'd go to Pop Lock Gallery.
Yes, and hit up Lexi Pickles. And Lexi Pickles would draw your
picture. People would like send her a

(04:40):
photograph of somebody and then she would hand draw it.
Man, why you need this I don't know.
It's crazy. It's like they haven't.
It's like they haven't heard of a camera.
They had her in the camera, theytook that picture and sent it to
her, and then she drew a pictureof that picture.
Wow, seems like some extra steps.
You know this. Is for rich people.
Now AI can just do this, right? Can AI take the blood, sweat and

(05:04):
tears of an actual person? The years of study that a person
has gone through and make art, No.
Maybe, OK, maybe sometime soon, I don't know.
I don't know if they got if if Open AI has got the blood pack
working yet, I don't know. We'll unfortunately find out
soon. She was also involved in acting

(05:25):
and modeling. She hosted some poker TV shows
and also hosted for extreme someextreme sports.
She definitely has the look for this as on the Internet they
would call it. She has blonde blindness.
Have you heard this term? Her hair's like super fucking
blonde. Oh, like a Fox News anchor.
Yes, it's like it's platinum. And then she has like dark, dark

(05:47):
eyebrows. She is an attractive woman.
It just is not natural looking. So she is it.
She's like Fox News News's type,like huge tits, skinny as can
be, blonde, blonde hair, dark eyebrows, just.
Hosting poker and like downhill mountain boarding?

(06:08):
Tournaments. Okay, that's her all right.
Although it seemed as though shewas heavily involved in the art
scene in LA. She moved back to Arizona in
2012 but continued to do art. Her website Alexandra's Art,
which I'm pretty sure is still running.
You could buy hand drawn portraits from $350.00 to $750
each and I think the price mightbe determined on how ugly you

(06:31):
are. If you're I, I don't know if you
should pay more if you're ugly or less if you're ugly.
I'm, I'm tired of this, this beauty tocracy that we got
going, you know, where ugly people have to pay more for
things. It's ridiculous.
Cause Sean's feelings are hurt just.
It's ridiculous. It's ugly.
It's proven. That's why prices are so

(06:52):
expensive when I go to the grocery store.
They trust you more. Yeah, they're like, oh, you want
an apple, buddy? That's 5 bucks, you fucking shit
face. I'm like, OK, And I can't even
say anything, 'cause I call the police, I get beat up, 'cause
I'm ugly. They're like, come on little
piggy, pay up. Were you there?
I was this. Is so traumatized.
I told them to do it. She had a YouTube channel.

(07:13):
It only has 2 videos on it, but it showcased how to do specific
types of art. It was, it seemed kind of cool,
whatever. Like most artists, Alexandra
needed another job or $350.00 Portraits were not paying the
bills, and in 2018 she became a real estate broker with Marcus
and Milchap. Wow, how you described her is

(07:34):
definitely also a real estate broker.
That's so. Oh yeah 100% this girl had the
pipeline of artists to real estate broker just like written
all over. Artist to poker tournament host
her to to real estate broker that classic, that classic.
Career pipeline, you know, in 2019.
So I'm not sure what made her switch careers, but in 2019 she

(07:56):
Co founded a medical device company called Cole Medical.
Cole CULL Medical Solutions Incorporated with Elizabeth Ori,
who was a lawyer. Cole is a bad name for a medical
device company. Why?
Because Cole means to like, likekill the weak ones to like to
like call the pack like that's. That's a terrible name for.

(08:18):
She didn't know that word, so that's.
Yeah, no, that's not I I mean, maybe it's a name or something,
but that's the only. Well, you'll find out OK about
all that. So Gerke was the CEO of Cole
Medical. Now Cole Medical was the what?
This is just such a weird like Iknow you said she took a weird
path but I'm like really what makes you one day be like man

(08:40):
I'm tired of selling 3 bed 2 baths and I just.
Yeah, I think I'm going to do. This Let's get into it, being
the CEO of a medical device company.
I couldn't find what made her switch career paths but she did
all right. Cole Medical was licensed to do
business in Arizona and used 2 addresses, one at an office near
Greekies house and then another which was someones home address.

(09:02):
However, it was actually incorporated in Delaware, not
Arizona because of the physical using the physical address of
delawareincorporated.com. Apparently many companies do
this because Delaware has reallycorporate friendly taxes and the
regulations aren't as strict andthey have a good legal system
there to deal with all this. A lot of big, a lot incorporated

(09:25):
in Delaware because they. Yeah.
And I also wonder if Ohio has similar laws because there are a
lot of companies that are also based in Ohio.
Well, that's the thing. You might even think that that's
like their base. They have their headquarters
there, but really they're incorporated through Delaware.
Like they have one satellite office that's smaller or
something in Delaware, and that's just where they're
incorporated. So wherever they're big.

(09:46):
Headquarters is it? Doesn't have to be.
They just have to, I think they just have to corporate physical
location there and that's it. Well, in 20, so she's been doing
this from about 2019 and in 2021.
This is where Jeffrey King enters the picture.
King was born in 1975 in Jeffersonville, IN.
There's not a ton of informationon him, but he joined the

(10:06):
military as an infantryman, and he was in the military until
2002. After he marched out of the
military, he danced his way intothe music business.
He worked for numerous music stores and studied audio
engineering in Arizona and Texas.
So Gerky. It's unclear how Gerky and King

(10:28):
became connected. My honestly, my suspicion is
that they met on a dating app, but that is just my pure
suspicion. They were involved in an
incident in 2021 where he was bitten by her cat and he filed a
lawsuit against her. And they're like, we don't know

(10:48):
how they met, but he was at her house and he got bit by the cat.
And I'm like sounds like they were on a date and he got bit by
the cat. That's so crazy.
Imagine like to sue your date over me like your cat bit me.
Well dude, cat bites are for like, serious though.
OK, but I'm assuming his wasn't that serious.
I don't know, my grandma ended up in the hospital over a cat
bite one time. It got infected like

(11:11):
immediately. She almost lost her hand.
What the hell? Yeah, it was bad, all right.
She it was like her own cat. This cat almost died right as a
little kitten, and my grandma nursed it back to health with an
eyedropper in milk. OK and then this cat turned
around and bitter I. Almost made her lose her hand.

(11:31):
That's just the thing though. Cats will turn on you.
They will. There's a thing if you die, cats
will eat your body almost immediately.
Disgusting. Dogs wait a little bit, but cats
will eat you immediately. They do not care for you.
They are tiny lions that we havelocked in our houses with us.
I That's why I don't like cats, man.
No, I still have a cat. You can love them all day long
and you'll get your eyeballs eaten out by 1 and I will just

(11:51):
decay normally. That's fine.
So apparently this cat had recently had a procedure and it
was agitated and Gherke didn't warn King about the cat and it
attacked him. He allegedly got really sick
from the cat, went into sepsis, according to the court
documents. He also allegedly had permanent
scarring and disfigurement. And I don't know, there were a

(12:13):
bunch of silly things in this lawsuit, but, and honestly,
we're not really sure where it went, but I just thought it was
funny and I was going to add. Was funny.
Wow, permanent scarring and disfiguring.
He's like, you see this small scratch in my hands.
You want to know how I got these?
Guys, it was a cat bite. It was a cat bite.
That's the end of the story, so it's not that cool, but.
Well, this was not the end of Jeffrey King and Alexandra

(12:36):
Gerke's story. The lawsuit was filed in April
2021, but the two announced thatthey were dating in September of
2021. Oh what a what a meet cute, you
know, Boy meets girl, girl's catbites boy, boy almost dies and
then they fall in love after a lawsuit.
So in December 2021, Gerke started another medical device

(12:57):
distribution company called Apex.
She was the sole owner of this and this company was also shared
with an address that also sharedan address with Cole Medicine.
So King started working for Gerke as a sales Rep and in July
2022 Gerke started 1/3 company called Apex Mobile Medical LLC

(13:19):
and this was also registered to all the addresses of all the
other companies. So Gerke was co-owner of the
company with Keith Allen Gough aPhoenix based doctor.
Gerke acted as the CEO of the company and was in charge of all
the company's operations. So this is when Gerke and King
started their sinister plan and they also got engaged in 2022.

(13:44):
Aw, how cute. Yes.
So in February 2023, King started his own company called
APX, not Apex APX Mobile MedicalLLC.
Oh wow, so they dropped literally one letter?
Yes, and this was also Co owned by Keith Goss.
And a few months later, Goss submitted paperwork to the state

(14:05):
to release King from company ownership, although it's unclear
of why he did it, but what kind of we'll see how the story
unfolds. And I think he knew that
something sketchy was going on and he was like, no, I'm not
doing business with you. You got to go because a lot of
sketchy stuff happens. Oh surprise, they're on the
episode. I was wondering when it's.
Coming true, true, true. And since King got let go, Gerke

(14:32):
starts yet another medical company and another company
called Viking Medical Consultants LLC.
And this again, she did not share this with anybody.
This one she was also solely in charge of.
At least the names different. At least the name is different.
So I'll at least give them that.So there's a lot of companies
that Gerke and King are working with and operating.

(14:53):
Really Gerke's the one operatinghim.
King is like her little henchman.
I don't know how they could keepit all straight because I can
barely keep it all straight justreading about it and listening
to it. But three of these companies,
the Apex, Apex Mobile and APX, they were all medical device
distributors and for clarity, medical device distributors.

(15:15):
They are an enterprise Oregon, an individual that it's their
job to make connect between their company and medical
equipment brands so that they can bridge the gap between
medical equipment brands and then where the equipment is
being sold to. So this could be to a hospital,
to a doctor's office, etcetera. Yeah, these are the people that
like go around and they do this for like prescription medicines

(15:37):
too. They have someone that goes
around and has like a product catalog and goes to doctors and
says like, hey, here's this device, here's what it does,
Here's why it's better than the others and usually gives them
incentives to buy it. Like if you get it, if you give
this, we'll give you X amount ofperks.
Yeah. I don't know if you guys have

(15:57):
seen The Pursuit of Happiness, but this reminds me of The
Pursuit of Happiness where Will Smith, like Kashawn was just
saying goes around. He has like this machine that
he's trying to sell a bunch of these machines and they're
actually not very good and they're outdated, but he's going
around, he's trying to sell the machines to doctor's offices and
stuff and he's failing. But yeah, so now it's not

(16:19):
necessarily an individual doing this.
It's more of like a company so that people don't get screwed in
the way that Will Smith got screwed in that movie.
I don't remember the guys actualname, but so Gherki and King
would buy devices from third party manufacturers and they
would get medical professionals to use the devices on patients
and then they would bill the insurance companies for the

(16:39):
devices. So one of these insurance
providers included Medicare. If you are not in the United
States or you're not really surewhat Medicare is, it's a health
insurance program for the elderly or permanently disabled.
Like I said in the intro, one ofthe devices that was used in the
fraud that we're going to be talking about was amniotic

(17:02):
allograft, and this is a synthetic skin graft that is
made from human placenta tissue.Have you ever worked with this?
With an amniotic allograft. I don't know.
You do biology. Yeah, I do microbiology too.
I mean, so here's the thing. Like, I mean, I get what this
is, but yeah, no, I don't work in the medical field at all.
I didn't know if maybe one time you came in contact with No

(17:24):
thank you. Well, anyways, so these are
meant to be used for severe wounds.
So how it's worked is it's like this little tiny piece of
tissue, it's not very big and it's placed over the wound.
And then after several weeks or months it will help the wound
heal faster than it would that if the graph wasn't there.
It's got, it's got the power of a little baby inside of it.

(17:45):
That's why. Yeah, it is.
So abort your babies so we can have one.
I'm kidding, hey. Remember that thing I said about
like, there's there's things that we could cancel you?
Yeah. That would be love.
This is it. There's being pro-choice and
then there's being real pro abortion.
These skin grafts also will helpwith scarring, so the scarring

(18:07):
won't be as severe if you use one of these now.
These are extremely expensive. Thank you United States
Healthcare. They cost about $1000 per square
centimeter. Baby sack don't come cheap,
dude. Can you donate your placenta?

(18:29):
I don't know. I mean, I obviously they got to
do something with it afterwards.Well, some people eat it.
Not anymore. Well, I guess probably
something. That's not true.
They get it, put in those littlepills and then people take it.
That's gross. It's like super good for you.
No, I feel like that has to be alie.
That's so gross. Hey, it's so gross people.
And people say seed oils are badfor you.

(18:49):
It makes no sense. It's just random bullshit.
You know, I've I've assumed thatthat's what that is.
It's a little cannibalistic, A. Little.
Yeah. So if it's $1000 per square
centimeter, I don't know. A centimeter is not very big.
Imagine how much this would costif it was a big old wound.
It's a lot of money. At least multiple thousands of
dollars. It could go into the hundreds.

(19:11):
Well, yeah. Yeah, depending on how bad it
is. So Gherke and King, they would
get a company they worked with to buy the allografts at
inflated prices, and then they would bill Medicare for them.
Then the company. So it wasn't named in the
indictment. This company was not named in
the indictment, I think because there's a active investigation

(19:32):
going on against them. But this company that they would
work for would then give Gerke and King kickbacks in the form
of rebates on the purchase price.
And they would send this via wire transfer and it would land
directly into Gerke and King's bank accounts.
So they would charge Medicare the full purchase price and then
they would receive a kickback from the manufacturer.

(19:54):
King and Gerke also hired sales representatives without any
medical training with Gerke, Gerke's companies, Apex and
Viking. They would tell the
representatives to go to facilities with high numbers of
elderly people who are patients there.
So they would tend to go to nursing homes, assisted living
facilities and Hospice facilities because obviously.

(20:18):
Filter People get hurt more, they get sicker easier.
I mean, they fall down their skin.
Their skin's so thin, it just. Rips.
I mean, you got to know your target audience, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
And I mean, I will say that if they weren't doing fraud, they
were doing everything legitimately, I don't see an
issue with that. Yeah, I mean, this is just

(20:39):
unfortunately how the medical system works, which is, I mean,
there's a bunch of inherent flaws in it.
But but if you can't say this isany more evil than what a lot of
other companies would do, like praying on the elderly and the
sick, and that that's kind of how it works.
Yeah, unfortunately that is how it works.
So, so Gerke was quoted saying in a meeting that going to

(21:02):
Hospice cares, the nursing homes, etcetera.
It's quote where the money wherethe most money is AT and she's
not. She's not.
Wrong. No, they're right.
She's not wrong, that's the problem.
But they're right. Yeah, the representatives would
go in looking for wounds on the patients bodies, no matter how
small. They would collect the patients
insurance information and then the representative would

(21:24):
pressure the nurse practitionersinto ordering the second
allographs from Gerke and King'scompanies.
They would not consult doctors or look at patients medical
records when doing this. So they would just be like you
need to get these things blah blah blah.
I mean. Margaret in room 2 is a paper
cut. Let's.
Let's get a skin out. Let's.
Let's slap some placenta on thatthing, huh?

(21:47):
Make her a new woman. Sales reps were instructed to
order the largest and most expensive grafts, even if the
wound didn't require it. Gurkey would tell reps to order
the allografts and large amounts, even if the wound was
quote as small as my little fingernail.
Like, yeah, you'll need 100 centimeter, 100 square

(22:07):
centimeters for that. And mine is so much smaller than
yours. My little fingernail is like 3.
Kashan's is like 3 of mine. Yeah, you got a white ass
fingernail. OK, maybe you have a small you
have. Maybe you have a small
fingernail. Why is mine going to be all
weird and big? I do have a small fingernail.
OK. Sales reps were instructed to
not purchase graphs smaller than4 by 6 inches.

(22:31):
Can you do the math on that? It's 24 square inches.
So then how many centimeters would that be?
I don't know, there's about like.6 centimeters or something.
Let's just say half a centimeterfor for E, So it's what, 8 by
12, which is going to be 90, 6 square centimeters roughly.
So that's $96,000 for that. Yeah.

(22:54):
That's a lot of money, more money than I have.
The more the graph, the more graphs that were being applied
to patients, the more money Gerke and King would make off of
Medicare, obviously. And patients didn't need these
grafts for a variety of reasons.It wouldn't even just be that
the wound was too small. One reason that these grafts

(23:15):
would not work would be that thewound was infected and then it
wouldn't respond to the graft. Some patients already had
received grafts and they didn't need another one.
And some the wounds were old andthey had already kind of healed.
And then also some patients wereterminally ill and it was
pointless to give them the graphbecause they, I mean, come on,

(23:38):
they're going to die. They don't need the graph, but
they would get it for them anyway.
And it was noted that some patients were dying days or
hours after receiving the graphs, which is really gross to
think about. Yeah, like I'm I already got to
die. Now I got to die with placenta
slapped on me. Yeah.
Woof. It's also, it's also not only is

(24:00):
this like egregious for the reasons like of making money off
of the sick and the elderly, butthis is also egregious because
you're wasting so much product. Yeah, I guess I don't know what
the demand is for. This, yeah.
I don't know what the demand. I mean, honestly, I don't.
Know what placenta is coming in the door to.

(24:20):
Know how much needs to go out the door for people who really
need it and aren't getting it, you know?
But it's like the issue that we've had earlier this year with
Ozempic where like people who legitimately need it, Ozempic,
people who have diabetes who legitimately need this
medication cannot get it becauseit's become a weight loss trend.
Yeah, so. Kelly Clarkson needed to lose
the weight Nina. Well, did you see her all right?

(24:43):
It's really disgusting that Kingand Gerke would exploit the
dying in this way. Like I said, it was their last
hours on earth and they were being applied with a graft that
would not help them. It was only being used to make
Gerke and King richer. And some reps were making, they
were making so much money off ofthis.
Some reps were making hundreds of thousands of dollars per
month on the grass graphs. Nurse practitioners were also

(25:05):
hired by Viking, that company ofone of the many companies Gerke
owned. And what's they would hire the
nurse practitioners and they were sent out to place the
graphs on patients that they had, you know, ordered them for
each graph that the nurse practitioners would place earned
them between 500 to $1000. So that's a good side hustle.

(25:28):
Gerke and King charged Medicare,ended up charging Medicare $900
million on 500 patients. Now, Medicare wasn't the only
company that Gerke and King scammed.
They also ripped off commercial insurance plans as well as Champ
Champ VA. Champ VA is the civilian health

(25:50):
and medical program of the Department of Veteran Affairs.
So that's for people who were either veterans of the military
or family members of veterans, mostly spouses and children, as
well as Tricare, which is the federal insurance program for
the Department of Defense. Yeah, and it's just because so

(26:11):
all the private companies, the the private insurance companies,
this is also why they get a bad rap for denying everything that
you send them is because they'rereally overly protective about
it. All of the government, like
insurance companies, have the opposite problem.
Yeah, they don't. They don't have enough
oversight. They're not given enough powers
to be able to say like you're you're bending us over a barrel.

(26:34):
So they're ripe for exploitationthat that's why it was good when
Medicare was finally able to negotiate drug prices.
But talking to someone I know who's a consultant in the field
recently, there's a limit on that.
I didn't know that they can onlynegotiate like 7 to 9 drugs or
something a year for the prices.It's not like all of them they

(26:55):
they get to negotiate like 7. So it's functionally not that
big of a difference unfortunately.
Oh wow that sucks. So what would cause Gerke and
King to even do this? Honestly, it was just greed.
It was just great. That's all it was.
With the money they were able tosteal from these health
insurance providers, they financed a luxurious lifestyle

(27:18):
that included multiple luxury vehicles, including a $300,000
Ferrari, a $230,000 Mercedes-Benz.
These were purchased specifically by Gerke herself.
King purchased a $640,000 home, which I think you can speak to
this. This is pretty.
That's pretty a big home in Arizona.

(27:41):
Yeah. I mean, it depends on there are
more expensive areas like everywhere.
But yeah, that's pretty good. Well, like, it's more than what
$640,000 in Chicago would get you.
Oh, hell yeah. Yeah.
Like, it's a sizeable home. Yeah.
The couple jointly paid for a $5.8 million home.
And inside that home there was over $500,000 in gold bars, gold

(28:03):
coins and jewelry. Like they were like they were a
king and queen with like with with a rich's room filled with
chests of gold. What the hell?
Yes. OK.
They they were very extravagant.It sounds.
Like it. And if you saw them, I mean like
they just look like a RIP off version of Tomi Lahren.

(28:25):
You know who that is? Yeah, I said Fox News anchor.
So. She looked like Tomi Lahren.
He looks like Walmart Pitbull like.
Is he bald? Yes.
Oh wow. OK.
Yeah, so like, this isn't super.They lived extravagantly.
They lived very, very much so with it without above their
means. Well, I guess it wasn't above

(28:46):
their means because they were stealing many.
But in May 2024, King opened andopened his own recording studio
called Scottsdale Music Company.I knew they were going to be in
Scottsdale. Yep, which had a bunch of super
expensive equipment and it had multiple employees.
Now they decided to take their relationship to the next level.
And in February of 2024 this year, the couple had an

(29:08):
elaborate wedding at the RickleyMansion in Phoenix, AZ.
It's beautiful. It's a, it's a beautiful
mansion. I mean, it's a mansion.
Guests ate filet mignon in Chilean sea bass and had a
Butler and had Butler passed hors d'oeuvres at the wedding.
Even though I, I kind of wish I was there because it would have
been a very nice experience. Even though they were eating on

(29:29):
Medicare's dime. I think I would.
No matter what. I think I would feel
uncomfortable around a Butler. Oh yeah, for sure.
Like I'd be like, it's, it's like a, it's like a bathroom
attendant, you know, you go. In there and you're so awkward
and. You're like, I don't know, this
is like a weird amount of service now where I think I'm
awkward that you're here doing this stuff for me.
Yeah. And I want to avoid you as much

(29:52):
as possible like. 100%. Like that one guy who said say
enjoy the game big man. And I was like, oh.
God, is that what he said? Yeah, he said that to me.
And I was like, I was like, why are you in the bathroom, man?
That's so. Awkward.
I don't want to talk to anyone, right?
Now I'm just like, I can, I can put the soap in my hands myself.
I can, like, get my own paper towels.
Now I feel like I have to tape tip you.

(30:14):
Yeah. Like, it's awkward.
Yeah. I don't know if I've ever been
to a wedding where somebody had people passing out orders on a
platter. Yeah, I don't know.
I don't. I don't have that rich of
friends. I don't know anybody rich, so
they also had a lot of unnecessary stuff on their
wedding registry, which includeda $3200 Dolce and Gabbana

(30:35):
blanket and a $140.00 Tom Ford candle.
You should not ever spend that much money on a candle.
All they sell great. They sell great candles, just
saying. My mom had a like a $1200 set of
candles. What?
I don't know. They were specially made and
they looked like fucking. So they were from a special,

(30:55):
like handcrafted candle store that they looked like coyotes
and Saguaro cactuses. She loved those things.
But it it was. I know, Mom.
I'm sorry you listened to the episodes, but yeah, those were
stupid. There's just so many better
things just for spend $1200 on. You are very correct.

(31:17):
She actually paid for them, theyweren't gifted to her.
No, she went. There is a specialty candle
store in Prescott, AZ that is still there.
So they do enough business that.Is insane.
'Cause they charge hundreds of dollars for candles that if you
go you can get candle shaped or whatever stupid Arizona themed
thing you want. Wow, they also had a little

(31:38):
butterfly statue that was like hundreds and hundreds of dollars
on their wedding registry. It was crazy.
It's like Dennis Kozlowski and his stupid dog Umbrella Holder
that cost like 10s of thousands.Yes, well, it was all fun and
games until June 18th, 2024 whenGerke and King were arrested at

(31:59):
the Phoenix, AZ airport. They were going to go to London
for their honeymoon. Not at Sky Harbor.
Yes, that's Sky Harbor. In their luggage, police found a
book called Criminal Law Handbook.
Your rights survive the system, and at home, investigators found
a book called How to Disappear. Erase Your digital footprint.

(32:19):
Leave false trails, Vanish without a trace.
That's a long book title, man. I know it's super weird.
So they billed Medicare for $900,000 or no, I'm sorry, $900
million. What they took home from that as

(32:40):
a couple was $330 million. That's that's that's more than
1/3. That's crazy.
So that was an extreme amount ofmoney.
They are currently being chargedwith conspiracy, healthcare
fraud, receiving kickbacks and money laundering.
All of their possessions have been seized along with $52
million from 13 different bank accounts.

(33:02):
One of the reasons that they gotcaught, I mean, you know, this
was a lot of money that they stole and all of that.
But one of the reasons that theygot caught was they were super
sloppy with this. Like I was saying earlier, like
stuff was getting deposited directly into their bank
accounts. They weren't really hiding
anything really well. So, and they were also moving
extremely large amounts of money.

(33:23):
So it like flagged it immediately like they were
moving like $3,000,000 at a time, which like that is going
to get flagged. I mean, I wonder if there's just
any chance that, honestly, stufflike this is so routine that I
feel like this goes on all the time without people getting
caught. So it feels like it's just an
open secret. Maybe they thought that they

(33:44):
just wouldn't be like big enoughfish to fry.
Yeah, yeah, maybe. Maybe they weren't the only ones
that got caught. One other person that got in
trouble with this was Bethany Jamison.
She was a nurse practitioner that worked for Gerkie and King.
She's also been arrested with conspiracy to commit wire fraud,
and she made $230,000 in bribes.There was another nurse

(34:06):
practitioner that made $220,000 in bribes.
People were making a lot of money doing this, a lot of money
doing this. And at that point when people
are doing stuff like that, like,you know, what you're doing is
wrong, like you just do. The fraud lasted from 2022 to
2024. So it was about a year and a

(34:26):
half that they scammed Medicare out of that $900 million.
So that's actually crazy that ina year and a half they took
almost a billion dollars. That's how much money is in the
medical. Field that's what's crazy and
then it's like then why are we Imean it's just gross.
The entire medical system is just so gross in this country
that they can steal that much money and then like I'm strapped

(34:49):
with an ER bill and can like barely afford, like, you know
what I mean? I can barely afford the monthly
payment on this ER bill. There's so many people that have
gone into bankruptcy in this country because of medical
expenses. And then you've got people like
this who are just scamming thesesystems, making hand over foot.
It's just disgusting. It's just absolutely disgusting.

(35:13):
And over fist. Oh, whatever.
Keep it in there. I don't care.
I don't know. I think we've said this a
million times. We're beating a dead horse.
I mean, the whole country has been saying this, but we, we
seriously need a revision of ourmedical system.
Oh, absolutely. Like it's going one of these
days, we need a revision to almost every system in this

(35:34):
country. But like, we cannot sustain
this. This kind of stuff cannot be
sustained and it's gross when people like this take advantage
of the system that like turns around and hurts the average
person. I mean, you're raking in $900
million. And I know how many people that
have had Gofundmes because they have cancer and they can't pay

(35:56):
for their chemotherapy. Yep, like it's.
Disgusting. It's broken.
We've been shouting it for yearsand.
They're not listening. Nope, they hardly ever do.
They won't listen to me. Unfortunately.
Imagine that your loved one is lying in the bed dying, getting
unnecessary medical treatments only to make others richer.

(36:19):
That is the was the harsh reality of many patients that
were provided skin grafts or provided grafts at the hands of
Alexander Gerke and Jeffrey King.
The insane greed of this couple overtook their lives and the
lives of many patients. Providing medical treatments for
patients who do not need them, only to obtain wealth and take

(36:40):
advantage of a shitty medical system is the epitome of greed.
Time will tell what they're sent, what the sentencing of the
couple will be. We will update you as soon as we
find out. And that's this week's episode.
It's a gross one. Yeah, I don't know.
I've heard so many of these. I know, I know.

(37:03):
Fraud stories and they're all shitty, but.
But this one was almost a billion dollars, and that's
what's just like crazy. That is so much money.
I mean, that's the thing. Everything is falsely inflated
in the medical field. So it's, yeah, these things add
up really fast. Yeah, We've allowed it to get to
this point where it's just like absolutely uncontrollable, like
you're. Yeah.

(37:23):
Just remember though, Medicaid is only a very small fraction of
what our government spends on. So there's.
Yeah, Medicare and Medicaid don't.
There is a bunch of money being bled out to even worse things.
But this is but obviously this is still bad and worse because
it deals with people who are at their most vulnerable, which is
always the issue is that when capitalism meets a very like,

(37:46):
like it, it's a captive, it's a captive market, right?
And it's like people can't really go other places and do
other things because their literal lives are on the line.
So, so yeah, it definitely gets a little a little more shifty
here. Yeah, and obviously I'm fine
with the government putting their money into Medicare and
Medicaid and people getting likehealthcare that they need we.

(38:07):
Should have more oversight over.It for sure 100% should have
more oversight and it's not fair.
It's not fair for well. And then also it's people like
yes, the government provides youthat like you're in this program
when you're 65 and over or permanently disabled, but you
still have to pay for it. My grandma still has to pay for
her Medicare and she got like hella screwed over because of

(38:28):
various different reasons. But you know, people are still
paying for this. And like, it's not cheap.
It's still not cheap. Even though the government, like
you're in this government program, it's still not cheap.
It's just gross. It's just gross that they took
advantage of this. I know I'm repeating myself, but
it fires me up as someone who has a lot of medical debt.

(38:48):
So if you liked our episode and liked what you heard, you can
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(39:10):
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(39:31):
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(39:52):
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(40:15):
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(40:36):
Thanks, Steve. And we're this was episode 7.
Yeah, I can't believe. That episode 7 of this season,
so if you submit them now, it'd be a perfect.
Time. It'll be a perfect.
Time for Season 18. Yes, and I think that's it.
So thank you so much for listening, and we'll see you
next time on another episode of White Collars.
Red hands.