The Biden administration has lost yet another case in a rare unanimous decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Justices ruled 9-0 last week to limit “the reach of the federal Identity Theft Penalty Enhancement Act, unanimously rebuffing the Biden administration’s efforts to prosecute a man already convicted of Medicaid fraud with a separate charge of aggravated identity theft arising out of the same fraud case,” The Epoch Times reported.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor authored the decision in Dubin v. United States, while Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote a concurring opinion.

The Epoch Times continued:

For violations, the Identity Theft Penalty Enhancement Act mandates a two-year prison sentence.

When President George W. Bush signed the bill into law in 2004, he stated that it created the federal “offense of aggravated identity theft” to ensure that anyone convicted of this crime would be sentenced to prison “for stealing a person’s good name.”

“These punishments will come on top of any punishment for crimes that proceed from identity theft,” Bush said then, adding it “raises the standard of conduct for people who have access to personal records through their work at banks, government agencies, insurance companies, and other storehouses of financial data.”

However, the Supreme Court rejected the U.S. Department of Justice’s argument that petitioner David Fox Dubin was automatically guilty under the act because the patient’s Medicaid reimbursement number was included as a “means of identification” on a fraudulent Medicaid billing form.

Dubin held the position of managing partner at PARTS, an Austin, Texas-based company founded by his licensed psychologist father, William Dubin. A U.S. district court convicted both defendants for their participation in a conspiracy to defraud the Medicaid program in Texas.

Medicaid is a jointly administered federal-state program that serves low-income individuals of all ages. As state and local administrations administer the program in accordance with federal guidelines, the program’s specifics may vary from state to state. Each state has the authority to establish its own eligibility requirements and designate the scope of the program’s services.

Due to the precedent established by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, the U.S. district court upheld Dubin’s conviction for aggravated identity theft, despite the fact that the primary focus of the case was fraudulent invoicing, not identity theft. A divided 5th Circuit upheld the conviction in March 2022, despite acknowledging that, according to the government’s interpretation of the statute, “the elements of [the] offense are not captured or even fairly described by the words ‘identity theft.'”

Professor of law at Stanford University and Dubin’s counsel Jeffrey L. Fisher expressed satisfaction with the verdict.

More on this story via Conservative Brief:

“We’re grateful for the Court’s decision for Mr. Dubin’s sake and are pleased in general that the Court has reined in the prosecutorial overreaching the statute allowed,” he told The Epoch Times. CONTINUE READING…