YOUNGSTOWN — The Ohio Supreme has indefinitely suspended the law license of Anthony J. Fusco, 37, of Youngstown, who was convicted of insurance fraud for falsely inflating $859,464 worth of client medical bills while submitting claims for a law firm.

Fusco spent about 17 days in prison and about 22 days in the Mahoning County jail as part of his sentence in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court after pleading guilty to the third-degree felony of insurance fraud. Judge Anthony D’Apolito sentenced Fusco to 18 months in prison, but let him out early.

During a hearing, D’Apolito said the victims in the case were the insurance companies to which Fusco sent altered medical bills. Clients of Fusco did not know of the fraud, officials have said.

D’Apolito ordered Fusco to be assessed for “counseling,” including substance-abuse counseling, and to follow the recommendations he was given.

His attorney, David Betras, told D’Apolito he had known Fusco since Fusco was a first-year law student who worked for Betras as a law clerk.

Betras told D’Apolito Fusco had become addicted to Adderall, which is a stimulant used to address attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in children and adults. It is “considered dangerous” because of its “high risk of abuse and dependence,” according to the Web MD website.

In October 2022, Judith French, director of the Ohio Department of Insurance, issued a news release stating that an audit of 1,400 claim settlements Fusco handled between March 2017 and September 2019 while working for the law firm Kisling, Nestico & Redick found that Fusco knowingly submitted altered and inflated medical bills in 399 client bodily injury claims submitted to 62 insurance companies. The bills were inflated by $859,464, the news release states.

Fusco resigned from KNR in October 2019, the release states. He joined the firm in December 2015, approximately one month after admittance to the practice of law.

John Reagan, managing partner of KNR, told The Vindicator that to his knowledge, no clients knew of the altered and inflated medical bills. He said the investigation into Fusco began after an insurance company advised KNR there was a “discrepancy on a bill that was submitted by Fusco. We investigated that file. We verified the discrepancy. We confronted Anthony Fusco with that information, at which point he walked out of KNR and we terminated him.”

Fusco has been under an interim suspension since September 2022. A Supreme Court majority did not grant him any credit for time served under the interim suspension.

Writing for the Court majority, Chief Justice Sharon L. Kennedy stated that credit for time served should not be based solely on the total amount of time an attorney will be unable to practice law, but rather on the totality of the circumstances. Noting that Fusco’s criminal activity spanned more than two and a half years and that he personally profited from the misconduct, the Court found that not granting him any time-served credit was appropriate, an Ohio Supreme Court press release states.

Justices Patrick F. Fischer, Daniel R. Hawkins and Megan E. Shanahan joined the chief justice’s opinion. Tenth District Court of Appeals Judge David J. Leland, sitting for Justice Jennifer Brunner, also joined the opinion.

In a separate opinion, Justice R. Patrick DeWine wrote that he would grant Fusco one year of credit for time served. By not granting any credit, Fusco will be suspended for more than five years before he is eligible to apply for reinstatement.

Three weeks after being admitted to practice law, Fusco started working at a personal injury law firm in December 2015. He was paid a $45,000 annual salary and received bonuses based on a percentage of the legal fees earned over the course of the year, the news release states,

The more fees he earned for the firm, the greater the percentage of the fees he received in bonuses, the Ohio Supreme Court news release states.

Fusco helped prepare demand packages to settle lawsuits, each one consisting of a client’s medical bills and other documents concerning medical treatment. The packages were submitted to insurance companies. At any given time, Fusco was responsible for 400 to 600 clients, according to the Ohio Supreme Court news release.

Fusco did not establish that a disorder contributed to his misconduct, but he testified at his disciplinary hearing that around 2016, he started to misuse Adderall prescribed to him.

He stated that he would take the drug and sometimes stay awake for more than 50 hours, with maybe an hour of sleep. He claimed that by 2018, he was consumed with work and how many cases he could settle.

In April 2024, he entered into a contract with the Ohio Lawyers Assistance Program and began mental health treatment.