Rehan Zuberi, the government’s key witness in their case against West New York Mayor Felix Roque, testified that he bribed Roque at his Town Hall office on two occasions.
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“Describe the process that would happen when [you] would deliver bribes to the defendant at the mayor’s office,” Medicaid Fraud Control Unit Chief Deputy Attorney General Peter Sepulveda asked Zuberi on the stand this afternoon.
“I would usually let … Dr. Roque tell me that he’s at the mayor’s office, so I would go there and both the times I went, I went with my driver – he usually parked on a side street – and I would go in … and somebody would come out and get me,” he responded.
When asked why he would deliver bribes to the mayor’s office as opposed to Roque’s medical practice, Zuberi said that he met the elected official there on two separate occasions as a matter of convenience for both parties – who kept busy schedules.
Zuberi further testified that each bribe for an MRI referral was either $100 or $150, while a CAT scan was $50, amounts that were suggested by Roque, the witness stated.
Meanwhile, his medical imaging facility in Hackensack, was typically reimbursed $500 for each MRI they performed, Zuberi also said.
This portion of the afternoon session concluded by Zuberi exclaiming that he had other employees, including his brother-in-law, deliver bribes to doctors as time went on so that he wasn’t the only one making withdrawls from the bank.
The court unexpectedly halted the afternoon session shortly after returning from the lunch break around 1:30 p.m. due to Roque’s team objecting to the state introducing evidence related to text message and phone calls between Zuberi and Roque.
Judge Christopher Kazlau said this morning that he planned on adjourning court today between 4 p.m. and 4:30 p.m.
