{"id":300058,"date":"2026-10-05T11:54:16","date_gmt":"2026-10-05T11:54:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/300058\/"},"modified":"2026-10-05T11:54:16","modified_gmt":"2026-10-05T11:54:16","slug":"she-was-convicted-in-hertel-brown-case-in-25-sentencing-is-in-27","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/300058\/","title":{"rendered":"She was convicted in Hertel & Brown case in ’25. Sentencing is in ’27"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/p>\n

The investigation into the billing practices at Hertel & Brown Physical & Aquatic Therapy became public when the FBI and other law enforcement agencies searched what was then the business’ main office, in the West Erie Plaza in Millcreek Township, on Feb. 23, 2021. A grand jury indicted the business, its two owners and 18 employees on Nov. 9, 2021.<\/p>\n

GREG WOHLFORD\/ERIE TIMES-NEWS FI<\/p>\n

USA TODAY Network, Reuters<\/p>\n

The only defendant yet to be sentenced in the sprawling Hertel & Brown health care billing fraud is not scheduled to learn her fate until the middle of 2027, two years after she was convicted at trial in federal court in Erie.<\/p>\n

The sentencing hearing for physical therapist Julie A. Johnson has been rescheduled from Nov. 6 to April 29, according to a court order filed Oct. 2.<\/p>\n

U.S. District Judge Robert Colville, who presided at trial, granted the defense’s request to postpone the sentencing hearing. Johnson’s court-appointed lawyers, Efrem Grail and Julia Gitelman, of Pittsburgh, asked for the delay because of scheduling issues.<\/p>\n

They also said they need more time because they are “engaging an expert to analyze the relevant billing records and to prepare an independent assessment of any loss properly attributed to Ms. Johnson,” according to a defense motion.<\/p>\n

The motion states that the prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Christian Trabold, took “no position” on the defense’s request to postpone the hearing.<\/p>\n

Johnson and two others chose trial<\/p>\n

Johnson, 45, of Millcreek Township, has been free on a $10,000 unsecured bond since she and 20 other defendants were indicted in November 2021 in the case against the Erie-based Hertel & Brown Physical & Aquatic Therapy.<\/p>\n

Also charged were the lead defendants, Hertel & Brown as a corporation and owners Aaron W. Hertel and Michael R. Brown, as well as 17 other employees. The indictment listed Johnson seventh out of the 21 defendants.<\/p>\n

The defendants were accused of conspiring in an overbilling scheme that cost Medicare, Medicaid and other public and private insurers as much as $22 million over 14 years. The scam included Hertel & Brown using unlicensed and low-paid techs to perform physical therapy and billing as if physical therapists did the work.<\/p>\n

Except for Johnson and two other defendants, all the defendants pleaded guilty to the felony of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and health care fraud. Johnson and two other defendants went to a joint trial. Two of the defendants were acquitted of all charges, and Johnson was acquitted of the conspiracy count and convicted of health care fraud.<\/p>\n

The jury delivered its verdict on April 23, 2025. Colville initially set sentencing for Sept. 3, 2025, though the sentencing hearing was later rescheduled.<\/p>\n

Judge rejected Johnson’s claims of ‘miscarriage of justice’<\/p>\n

Colville, based in Pittsburgh, handled the trial at the federal courthouse in Erie. Erie-based U.S. District Judge Susan Paradise Baxter handled the cases of all the other Hertel & Brown defendants, and she completed her final sentence in the case on Aug. 4.<\/p>\n

With the exception of Hertel & Brown’s owners, Baxter sentenced all the defendants to probation and ordered them to pay large amounts of restitution to health care providers they overbilled.<\/p>\n

Baxter in February sentenced owners Hertel and Brown to six years in federal prison and fined them each the maximum of $250,000. Hertel and Brown in August reached a deal with the U.S. Attorney’s Office to pay $15 million each in restitution.<\/p>\n

Johnson is disputing the amount of restitution the U.S. Attorney’s Office has requested in her case, according to her lawyers’ motion to delay the sentencing. The motion does not include the proposed amount, and the prosecution has not disclosed it in a filing.<\/p>\n

Johnson did not testify at her trial. She appealed her conviction over a number of claims, including that the U.S. Attorney’s Office presented insufficient evidence.<\/p>\n

Johnson also argued that the verdict was legally inconsistent because she was acquitted of conspiracy but found guilty of health care fraud. Her lawyers called the verdict a “grave miscarriage of justice” in a court filing.<\/p>\n

Colville in July rejected Johnson’s lawyers’ request to set aside the verdict.<\/p>\n

“Viewing the record in the light most favorable to the prosecution,” Colville wrote in a 55-page opinion, “the Court has no difficulty concluding that a rational trier of fact could have found Johnson guilty of health care fraud beyond a reasonable doubt.”<\/p>\n

Contact Ed Palattella at epalattella@usatodayco.com or 814-870-1813.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: She was convicted in Hertel & Brown case in ’25. Sentencing is in ’27<\/p>\n

Reporting by Ed Palattella, Erie Times-News \/ Erie Times-News<\/p>\n

USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect<\/p>\n

\"Physical Physical therapist Julie A. Johnson arrives at her trial at the federal courthouse in Erie on April 16. 2025. GREG WOHLFORD\/ERIE TIMES-NEWS FI USA TODAY Network, Reuters <\/p>\n

Copyright Reuters or USA Today via Reuters Connect<\/p>\n

This story was originally published October 5, 2026 at 5:13 AM.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The investigation into the billing practices at Hertel & Brown Physical & Aquatic Therapy became public when the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":300059,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[136,138,137],"class_list":["post-300058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300058\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}