Brian Meshkin literally got his day in court, and he finally feels vindicated.
U.S. District Judge Josephine Staton of the Central District of California on Dec. 22 threw out all federal charges against Meshkin and five others regarding fraud allegations at the company he founded, Proove Biosciences.
“There has been so much injustice over the past six years that it is wonderful to see truth prevail,” Meshkin said in a statement to the Business Journal.
“I am excited to have the opportunity to set the record straight and to move forward from here with my head held high.”
Proove, which Meshkin founded in 2009 and was based in Irvine, made tests designed to help doctors make decisions by taking DNA samples gathered through patient cheek swabs to analyze their pain thresholds and predisposition for addiction to prescription opioid pain killers.
With $28 million in annual sales and 278 employees in 2016, Proove ranked among the nation’s fastest-growing firms by Deloitte Consulting and Inc. magazine. Meshkin won a Business Journal Excellence in Entrepreneurship Award in 2016. At that time, the company’s valuation approached $200 million, and it was preparing for an IPO.
Reports, FBI Action
Then a series of articles on the health website STAT News questioned the company’s products. Afterwards, the FBI raided the company’s headquarters. Proove’s revenue dropped by 90% within a month.
In 2021, Meshkin was indicted on federal charges that he paid physicians $3.5 million in kickbacks to induce them to order unnecessary genetic tests for Medicare and Medicaid recipients. Meshkin alone spent a million dollars on his legal fees.
The allegations “resulted in the destruction of Proove Biosciences and the smearing of many reputations,” Meshkin said.
“This abuse was personally traumatic to my family—especially my three kids who had to deal with the embarrassment and financial destruction of their dad.
“It’s hard to put into words what it was like to go from having a stellar reputation and respected integrity for decades to then having to wear a ‘scarlet letter’ due to false, defamatory, and highly damaging ‘fake news’ stories and irresponsible government actions that called into question my honesty and credibility.”
Stradling Work
Meshkin’s lawyers, led by Jason de Bretteville, chair of litigation at Stradling, Yocca, Carlson & Rauth, questioned the “lack of credible evidence and many prosecutorial abuses,” he said.
The judge ordered the prosecutors and FBI to submit sworn declarations. Instead of doing so, 30 days before trial, the DOJ agreed to dismiss the charges.
“Thus, after six years, and millions of dollars spent, this thoroughly discredited investigation resulted in no convictions or financial penalties, and all parties cleared,” Meshkin said.
He currently serves as a managing partner of Newport Beach-based Profound Ventures LLC, a healthcare investment firm that he started along with other Proove executives to invest in early-stage companies.
Meshkin is exploring his options on whether to sue STAT News, which never apologized, and the federal government.
He said he’s also deciding whether he’ll restart Proove.
“Doctors have been asking me to do it,” he said. “It’s tragic when doctors are saying, ‘I have patients dying and I need your product.’”
