Gregory Mason | Philadelphia Litigation Lawyer

GREGORY A. MASON is senior counsel in the Philadelphia Office of Pietragallo Gordon Alfano Bosick & Raspanti, LLP where he is a member of both the Government Enforcement, Compliance, & White Collar Litigation and the Qui Tam & False Claims Act Practice Groups. Mr. Mason is a former trial attorney at the United States Department of Justice (Civil Division, Fraud Section), who focuses on representing qui tam plaintiffs and other whistleblowers, as well as defending individuals and companies facing False Claims Act investigations and other criminal and civil government enforcement. He litigates all aspects of fraud cases and other complex matters, and provides counsel and strategic guidance to individuals and entities in need of risk mitigation and compliance in the face of government regulation and enforcement.

Government Enforcement, Compliance, & White Collar Litigation Practice
Mr. Mason routinely defends health care, education, and financial services companies and individuals accused of fraud and other wrongdoing. Some representative matters include defending:

A behavioral health services company and individual psychiatrists accused of upcoding and overbilling for psychiatric treatments and visitations at nursing homes and assisted living facilities;
A medical device company accused of Anti-Kickback Statute violations related to sales commissions;
Individual doctors accused of improperly inflating the cost of pharmaceuticals billed to Medicare;
A charter school accused of submitting false certifications to obtain federal grants; and
Individual loan officers and employees of a financial services company accused of improperly approving ineligible loans under the Paycheck Protection Program.
Qui Tam Practice
In addition to defending targets of government investigations, Mr. Mason regularly represents whistleblowers who courageously come forward to report fraud and other wrongdoing, including qui tam relators under the False Claims Act, SEC whistleblowers under the Dodd-Frank Act, and whistleblowers under other state and federal statutes and programs. Drawing on his depth of experience investigating and prosecuting whistleblower complaints at the DOJ, and his experience advising defendants in government investigations and whistleblower litigation, Mr. Mason provides valuable strategic guidance to people reporting fraud across a broad range of industries.

Background
During his ten years as a DOJ trial attorney, Mr. Mason helped to recover over $100 million in settlements and resolutions of cases brought under the False Claims Act. Mr. Mason prosecuted a wide variety of allegations of fraud in the healthcare and procurement contexts. Some representative matters include investigating and prosecuting:

Cyclist Lance Armstrong and his former professional cycling team for using performance-enhancing drugs in violation of the team’s sponsorship agreement with the United States Postal Service;
Health insurance companies that allegedly retained Medicare Advantage (Medicare Part C) risk adjustment payments that were improperly inflated by inaccurate diagnostic data submitted to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS);
Home health providers that allegedly billed the Medicare program for medically unnecessary therapy;
Clinical laboratories that allegedly billed federal healthcare programs for laboratory tests performed with unsafe and unreliable handling of blood and urine specimens;
A biomedical company that allegedly billed inflated prices for skin grafts that it sold to the Department of Veterans Affairs;
Medical device companies and distributors for allegedly fraudulently billing Medicare for non-approved medical devices; and
A software company that allegedly billed inflated prices for computer software that it sold to government agencies.
Prior to his time at the DOJ, Mr. Mason practiced general commercial litigation for five years at a large law firm in Washington, D.C., where he handled cases across a broad range of legal issues, including business disputes, breach of contract, general liability, government investigations, intellectual property, defamation, construction and real estate, and professional malpractice.

Mr. Mason received his undergraduate degree in Physics from Lewis & Clark College, where he was a Dean’s Scholar and a member of Sigma Pi Sigma, the national physics honor society. He received his J.D., with honors, from The George Washington University Law School, where he was a member of the Mock Trial Board and Public Contract Law Journal.