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The husband of Host of “View”. Sunny Hostin, along with 200 co-defendants accused of insurance fraud in a massive $459 million lawsuit in New York, could be tied up in court for years, according to legal experts.
Emmanuel “Manny” Hostin, orthopedic surgeon, among dozens of doctors and medical staff named in a federal lawsuit which was filed last month by American Transit Insurance Co., a New York-based commercial insurance company that insures Uber, Lyft and taxi companies in the state. Hostin is specifically accused of receiving kickbacks for “performing transactions and fraudulently invoicing” American Transit, the suit says.
It mentions at least two of Hostin’s patients who were was allegedly treated in January 2023 after being involved in “low impact” collisions that caused only minimal damage. Despite suffering “no more than soft tissue injuries,” both underwent arthroscopic surgery, the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit was filed under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, in the Eastern District of New York — a strategy that legal experts told Fox News Digital was designed to have a stunning effect on the behavior. It’s also one that risks embroiling defendants like Hostin in years of complex litigation and potentially burdening them with huge payouts as a result.
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Co-presenter of “Polyad” Sanya Hostin. (Screenshot/ABC)
That’s because the RICO laws, passed in the 1970s as an attempt to stop the Mafia and other organized crime, allow plaintiffs to receive “treble damages,” an award three times the actual amount, or compensatory damages.
In American Transit’s case, that’s about $459 million or more — more than three times their compensatory damages of $153 million.
Intimidation factor, chilling effect
Often, these types of lawsuits are pursued with a certain strategy, said Michael Mears, an associate professor at John Marshall Law School who specializes in criminal law and RICO cases.
“There’s a lot more going on with the RICO statute than just collecting damages,” Mears told Fox News Digital. “It changes behavior. It changes attitudes. Sometimes the way of doing business changes.”
Civil RICO actions are sometimes used as a means to compel people or to stop certain conduct and oppressive practices. In Hostin’s case, that includes allegedly routinely overbilling doctors and emergency services, or overcharging patients to an extreme degree.
In New York’s case, for example, “you have doctors who really don’t want to be called criminals,” Mears said. “Allegations (under) the civil RICO statute alone can be very scary and can be a very powerful tool” to stop unwanted practices.
That’s not to say the defendants named in American Transit’s lawsuit, including Hostin, won’t have plenty of courtroom work ahead of them.
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Sunny Hostin is on air for a segment on “The View.” (Screenshot/ABC)
Legal experts told Fox News Digital that civil RICO cases are a long game in today’s world — often taking years, not months, to go to trial.
Plaintiffs in civil RICO cases are often insurance companies who accuse a group of people of fraud, Jeffrey Grell, an attorney who specializes in RICO lawsuits, told Fox News Digital.
In the American Transit lawsuit, the insurance company accuses Hostin and dozens of other doctors of abusing New York’s no-fault law to artificially inflate or bill for unnecessary treatment and profit from the kickbacks.
No-fault laws require companies like American Transit to cover health care costs “reasonably incurred” as a result of injuries sustained by insured passengers. But the low burden of proof under no-fault laws also means they are particularly vulnerable to exploitation by medical practitioners.
American Transit alleges that Hostin and other defendants abused New York’s no-fault laws by billing “hundreds of millions” of dollars in fraudulent payments between 2009 and December 2024.
Co-presenter of “Polyad” Sanya Hostin. (92Y via YouTube)
Complicated cases, long deadlines
Civil RICO cases are often long, difficult cases for everyone involved.
The 698-page lawsuit filed by American Transit is essentially one of the largest civil RICO cases ever brought in New York — providing little to no lengthy resolution process for Hostin and the other defendants.
Courts are “going to look at the individual claims against each defendant to establish all the elements of a RICO claim, and all the elements of a RICO claim are quite complex,” Grell said.
Many – if not all – of the defendants will try to dismiss the case before an inquest, a preliminary process that itself can take more than a year, begins. Often, defendants will have a barrage of related motions in an attempt to have their motions to dismiss granted by the court, further adding to the lengthy timelines.
After the dismissal motions are reviewed, the discovery process begins. This process can be lengthy and complicated because it involves all the individuals named in the lawsuit, and each defendant’s attorney will try to prove that their client individually does not meet the elements of a RICO case.
“Like any other civil action, the RICO statute allows people to testify,” Mears said of the time frame for RICO cases. “They allow you to collect documents. They allow you to detect the filling of records.”
Ultimately, it’s a process that “opens up a whole avenue to find out what’s going on in an organization — whether it’s a doctor’s office, a hospital, a physician group,” he said, and that allows plaintiffs to order discovery and document collection at each individually named .
This can cause the case to drag on even longer.
“In other words, the discovery process (in RICO cases) can be very intimidating,” Mears said. – This is a long game.
Sunny Hostin, for her part, praised her husband’s work as a doctor in her role as co-host of “The View.”
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Most recently, Hostin referenced his work in a debate about health insurance after a murder UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York.
“Doctors are also suffering because of big corporations, doctors who want to do good like my husband,” Hostin said in the segment. She added that her husband, as an orthopedic surgeon, “operates on someone even though he doesn’t have insurance and then has to sue health insurance companies to get paid for the work he’s been taught his whole life to do. “
Hostin’s lawyers previously denied all allegations against him and described the filing as “a single, disjointed, baseless lawsuit by an insurance company that is almost bankrupt,” the Daily Mail reported.
They did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment on the charges or any timeline expected in the RICO trial.
