Jesse Witten

Jesse A. Witten is a partner in the firm’s Commercial Litigation Practice Group and is a member of the White Collar Criminal Defense & Corporate Investigations Team.  Before joining Drinker Biddle, he served as a Deputy Associate Attorney General in the United States Department of Justice where his duties included co-chairing the DOJ’s health care fraud task force.  He also served as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the DOJ Environment and Natural Resources Division.  He previously was a partner with an international law firm.

Professional Experience:

• Defense of government investigations and enforcement actions alleging Medicare/Medicaid fraud.  Jesse has defended hospitals accused of violating the Anti-Kickback Statute and Stark Laws, reporting unallowed costs on Medicare cost reports, DRG upcoding, inflating charges to obtain excess Medicare outlier reimbursement and other alleged fraud.  He has also defended medical device manufacturers accused of illegal financial relationships with physicians and marketing non-FDA-approved devices, and pharmaceutical manufacturers accused of reporting false prices to Medicare and Medicaid.
• Counseling pharmaceutical and device manufacturers, health plans, hospitals and other providers on numerous health law issues, including: (i) Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement; (ii) compliance with Anti-Kickback and Stark laws; (iii) Medicaid and Medicare price reporting requirements for pharmaceutical manufacturers; and (iv) implementation and operation of corporate compliance programs;
• Obtained permanent injunction terminating a CMS Medicare demonstration project in New Jersey on “gainsharing”;
• Represented major research institution in investigation of alleged scientific research misconduct;
• Defended nonprofit hospitals accused of alleged excessive charges and unlawfully aggressive collections practices in violation of IRS laws governing tax-exempt hospitals; and
• Helped obtain reversal of murder conviction of an innocent man on death row.

In General. Jesse earned his J.D., magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School and his A.B., Phi Beta Kappa in economics from Princeton University. He was listed in Chambers USA 2007: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business and in 2004 was selected as an Outstanding Health Care Litigator by Nightingale’s Health Law News. Jesse is a frequent speaker at health care conferences. He has also published numerous articles on Medicare fraud enforcement and health care compliance topics.