Former co-owner of Bellevue lab gets longer prison sentence after trying to run away

The former co-owner of Bellevue-based Northwest Physicians Laboratory has been sentenced to an additional six months in prison.

Richard Reid, 55, was convicted in March 2022 of five federal felonies connected to his scheme of profiting off illegal kickbacks in the medical testing industry, as stated by the United States Attorney’s Office Western District of Washington on Tuesday.

Reid helped the laboratory obtain more than $3.7 million in kickback payments by steering urine drug test specimens to two labs that could bill the government for testing.

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In January 2023, he was sentenced to two years in prison.

“Mr. Reid was the architect of a scheme to illegally profit on toxicology tests that were paid for by government insurance,” U.S. Attorney Nick Brown said in 2023. “The web of referrals and kickbacks led to significant profits for NWPL and its owners. Such illegal kickbacks simply inflate medical costs for the rest of us.”

However, Reid failed to report to prison last spring and was therefore sentenced on Tuesday to six more months, according to the attorney’s office.

According to the attorney’s office, Reid repeatedly tried to delay his prison reporting date, claiming he had COVID-19 and then long COVID. Instead of showing up in April 2023, Reid left his home in Astoria, Oregon, and tried to run away.

The FBI then issued a “Wanted” poster and on May 7, 2023, Reid was spotted and arrested in a bar in Taylorsville, Oregon. Assistant U.S. Attorney Mike Dion then asked for Reid to serve an additional 10 months in prison.

“Richard Reid refused to accept responsibility for his role in a healthcare kickbacks scheme, and then refused to serve the sentence imposed by the court,” Dion said. “He exploited the court’s generosity in granting him two extensions of his reporting date, and simply ignored the court’s rejection of this third request.”

“Many hours of law enforcement resources were wasted in a multi-day fugitive investigation that ended with Reid being arrested in a bar,” he continued.

In Monday’s hearing, U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour, reportedly said Reid’s continued lack of accepting responsibility “takes my breath away.”

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CEO of Bellevue lab sentenced to prison, more than $7M in restitution

In May 2022, CEO of Northwest Physicians Laboratory Jae Lee, 51, from Bellevue, was sentenced to prison and $7.6 million in restitution for conspiring to solicit kickbacks.

“Mr. Lee knowingly set up a scheme to profit by referring government health care business to other labs – even more disturbing he tried to play one lab off against another to increase his ill-gotten gain,” Brown said in 2022. “Such conduct increases healthcare costs for all of us. This case should be a warning to others who may consider such schemes.”

Both cases are being prosecuted by Dion. Lee’s case is also being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Brian Werner.

Julia Dallas is a content editor at MyNorthwest. You can read her stories here. Follow Julia on X here and email her here.

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