Our Health Law Team Is Pleased to Welcome Richard Harrow to O’Connell and Aronowitz

O’Connell and Aronowitz continues its rapid growth to its health care and criminal law practices with the addition of Richard S. Harrow, Esq. Mr. Harrow was a prosecutor in the New York State Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit for 27 years, where his positions included serving as Regional Director for the NYC Region and as Regional Director in the Albany office. Mr. Harrow has investigated and prosecuted hundreds of Medicaid fraud and patient abuse cases, including “Operation Home Alone, where he was the lead prosecutor for then Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s top to bottom investigation of the homecare industry.  His work resulted in over 100 criminal convictions of home health aides, licensed health care agencies, schools, nurses, and $40 million in restitution. Mr. Harrow’s recoveries for New York State are among the largest in U.S. history.

Recognized as having one of the largest and most respected health and criminal law practices in New York State, O’Connell and Aronowitz has added a new dimension to the Firm with Mr. Harrow. In addition to focusing on Medicare, Medicaid and false claims prosecutions and investigations, and corporate compliance, Mr. Harrow will work with the Firm’s well-established white collar criminal defense attorneys where he will represent individuals and entities in every stage of criminal and regulatory investigations and prosecutions.

Regarding Mr. Harrow’s addition to O’Connell and Aronowitz’ health care practice, Jeffrey J. Sherrin, the Firm’s President, stated, “Due to the increasingly aggressive investigatory and prosecutorial activities of Federal and State law enforcement agencies in the health care arena., we felt that we needed someone with Mr. Harrow’s experience, talents, and in-depth knowledge of the workings of prosecutorial agencies upstate and in NYC to protect our clients’ interests. Mr. Harrow will represent our health care clients before all Federal and State prosecutorial and law enforcement agencies, including in the New York City area.

Mr. Harrow will also be joining noted criminal defense attorneys Stephen R. Coffey, Andrew R. Safranko and Michael McDermott in the Firm’s white collar criminal defense practice. According to Mr. Coffey, head of the Firm’s criminal defense practice, “We have assembled a top team of talented and experienced defense attorneys to respond to the increasingly complex nature of criminal law and the zealousness of federal and state law enforcement agencies. Our expanded white collar defense practice now includes criminal defense attorneys, former government regulators, prosecutors and health care litigation attorneys.

This post was contributed by Jeffrey Sherrin.