A ProPublica investigation into the company’s operations in Nevada, including a review of more than 3,000 pages of internal emails obtained through public records requests, shows the Chicago laboratory’s testing was unreliable from the start.

ProPublica’s investigation also found that Northshore used political connections, including contracting with the sons of a close friend to the governor Steve Sisolak, to fast-track its state laboratory license application and secure testing agreements with five government entities in the state. 

Northshore Clinical Labs has been in business for nearly three decades, but its leadership changed in July 2020. It is now run by three men with no apparent clinical laboratory experience and a history of fraud allegations: brothers Hirsh and Gaurav Mohindra and their associate Omar Hussain.

The Mohindra brothers have been involved in a variety of business pursuits unrelated to the medical field. Hirsh Mohindra was a real estate developer and Gaurav Mohindra lists himself on his LinkedIn page as an intellectual property lawyer.

Together they ran a debt collection business until 2016, when the Federal Trade Commission accused them of operating a scheme in which they bullied people into paying off debt they didn’t owe. As part of a settlement agreement, the brothers and a partner surrendered $9 million in assets and were banned from the debt collection business.

Hirsh Mohindra later served time in prison for an unrelated mortgage fraud case. He was released in February 2020, just as the pandemic was beginning and five months before his mother, Meena Mohindra, was listed as the new president of Northshore in Illinois Secretary of State filings.

In 2019, the FTC accused Hussain of participating in a phantom-debt collection ring with ties to the Mohindras’ case. He also agreed to a lifetime ban on debt collection activities and to surrender assets. The Illinois Secretary of State’s Office currently lists Hussain as Northshore’s president, replacing Meena Mohindra.

In Nevada, it contracted with Greg and Angelo Palivos, brothers with deep ties to both Chicago and Las Vegas, to build clientele and manage operations. Their father, Peter Palivos, is a prolific contributor to Nevada political campaigns and close enough with Gov. Steve Sisolak that the two met regularly in the early days of the governor’s administration. (Peter Palivos also served time in prison on an obstruction of justice charge related to a fraud case in Chicago, though he maintained he was set up by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for not helping prosecutors build a case against former Illinois Gov. George Ryan.)

Intriguing investigative story by the Nevada Independent on the political connection (Sisolak), lobbying/political corruption, and Nevada covid testing contract to Mohindras’…

For full story, please continue to this link – As reported by thenevadaindependent.com

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