Arraignment was continued until March 15 for the owners of a West Hollywood clinic who allegedly billed state and federal health programs up to $50 million in services not rendered or, in some cases, services purportedly rendered to dead patients, the District Attorney’s Office announced.

Deputy District Attorney Amy Suehiro of the Fraud Interdiction Program said Alla Chernov, 48, and Boris Sokol, 50, are charged with one count each of conspiracy to commit a crime with the allegation  the defendants took more than $3.2 million.  Bail has been set at $15 million each.

The defendants additionally were charged with one count each of grand theft for unlawfully taking money from Medi-Cal and Medicare.  The defendants are also accused of filing false tax returns between 2003 and 2005 for their personal and corporate incomes in excess of $14.9 million.

Chernov and Sokol were allegedly involved in a scheme over a five-year period, beginning in 2001, whereby they billed Medi-Cal and Medicare for medical treatment and diagnostic services that were not rendered.

An eight-year, multi-agency investigation further revealed that the defendants billed for patients who were seen at other medical facilities and, in some cases, for people who had died long before they purportedly received care at the defendants’ clinic.

Prosecutors allege that Chernov and Sokol orchestrated a complex conspiracy that involved medical doctors and bribes given to Medicare workers to obtain multiple provider numbers for doctors who saw no patients but merely initialed files.

In addition, some of the doctors were out of the country or were doing out-of-state internships when they allegedly supervised physician’s assistants.

The investigation was conducted by the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, the California Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Franchise Tax Board.

If convicted as charged, Chernov and Sokol each face seven years in prison.