Drug-dealing seems a strange career choice for a young chiropractor who could make a good living playing it straight. No records in Boulis' case offer a motive, but it seems likely that he hadn't quite left behind the hard partying of his college years.
His case would prove among the strangest in Atlanta history. According to an investigation by the state's attorney general, Boulis pleaded guilty to possession with intent to sell but withdrew that plea when he learned that he was to get jail time rather than probation. He was found guilty anyway, though by the time the jury delivered its verdict, Boulis had dashed from an Atlanta courthouse, a fugitive from justice. He turned himself in two weeks later and was sentenced to five years in prison, according to the attorney general's report. But Boulis struck an unorthodox deal with prosecutors whereby he wrote a $200,000 check, earmarked for the narcotics unit, in exchange for a reduced sentence of probation. The controversy that ensued prompted then-Gov. Zell Miller to order an investigation that ultimately brought about more severe penalties for Georgia's first-time drug offenders.
Goroway was well-aware of his old friend Boulis' criminal past. "He was in a lot of trouble," Goroway said in his deposition. "He was losing his license. He wasn't a very good guy, and I tried to help him out, and I gave him a job with me."
As described in Goroway's deposition, Practice Mechanix was a traveling seminar in which Goroway and his staff offered other practitioners a crash course in profit-boosting. Cutting costs was one obvious measure. But they also urged their colleagues to locate unbilled-for services and connected them with Goldstein's lucrative line of electrodiagnostic tests. Goroway was a natural; he finally had a stage upon which he could perform. It wasn't quite the acting exposure he'd dreamed of during his New Jersey boyhood, but the crowds were rapt.
At the outset of his seminars, Goroway stressed that Practice Mechanix's goal was to provide patients better treatment. But what drew chiropractors from around the country was the pledge that his methods could double or triple a clinic's revenue. After Goroway's presentation, salesmen approached chiropractors to "close" them — that is, convince them to sign a lease with Premier, Goldstein's company, which arranged for technicians to bring the diagnostic equipment to chiropractor offices and perform the tests, according to deposition testimony.
"He did well in front of people," Goldstein recalled in a recent interview by phone. "He was very charismatic, very smart — the kind of person who when you looked at him, he got through to you and made you believe what he said."
Practice Mechanix produced $800,000 in revenue in 1998, its first year. That doubled in 1999, and by 2000, revenues had passed $2 million. By the next year, Goroway reported a gross income of $2 million on his personal tax return.
The company was Goroway's creation, but it owed a debt to Dr. David Singer, a chiropractor who had long run his own seminar series. Goroway became a client of Singer's around 1991. He paid careful attention not just to the business concepts Singer preached but to Singer's delivery, his magnetic presence.
Those seminars, it turned out, had also become a kind of recruiting tool for Singer, a devotee of the Church of Scientology, the controversial self-help system maligned as a cult by critics. Boulis was enamored of Singer too and followed him into Scientology. Goroway would later note that Boulis "chipped away" at him until finally, around 1999, as he was getting Practice Mechanix off the ground, he joined the church.
By 2001, Practice Mechanix was using telemarketers and junk faxes to reach chiropractors. At its peak, Goroway claimed the company had 125 employees, a 34-seat telemarketing house in Pittsburgh, and $650,000 in operating expenses per month. Much of its success came from concepts of business organization that Goroway learned through Scientology, he would later say.
His profile was so high within the chiropractic community, Goroway noted, that Singer, who did not return calls for comment, called to invite him to join his company as a consultant, an offer he turned down. But he also attracted some unwelcome attention: A huge insurance company had noticed Practice Mechanix too, and its high-priced attorneys had Goroway in their crosshairs.
Goroway didn't know it yet, but his business was growing too fast. As more money came in, Goroway hired more salesmen and had less control over what was happening between them and company clients.
In 2001, he started receiving complaints from chiropractors who alleged that Boulis was encouraging them to pad their bills illegally. According to the deposition, he remembers telling Boulis "that I wanted to be totally good about everything we do and totally clean." Boulis, reached through his attorney, declined an interview request.
At the same time, the two friends were feuding over money — each said that the other owed him a hefty sum. Because Scientologists are barred from suing each other, they went through a mediation brokered by a church member. The mediator ruled that Goroway owed Boulis. Goroway quit the church and cut Boulis out of Practice Mechanix.
No follow-up story. Looks like the scammer was convicted, but got off with 10 years probation. Maybe he plead guilty.
http://mugshots.com/US-Counties/Florida/Broward-County-FL/David-K-Goroway.6521671/details/
But if he is still scamming people, and they did something about it, he could be recalled to prison. So do something, don't just stand there.
The girlfriend Suissa is a piece of work and works for the Broward County School System-nice, huh???
I would love to know what went on between 2008 and today, 1/18/2012, because David Goroway is still scamming people -- me for one. I am a chiropractor in SC and his latest scam is to con $847 out of chiropractors under the guise of setting up hCG weight loss programs in their clinics. They would do the marketing and provide the MD to prescribe the hCG. Needless to say, his company formerly known as Nu Age Rejuvenation and now called Life Allure has never performed their end of the agreement -- and I am out $847. I wish I had read this article before now, I might have stood a better chance of getting my money back. He is smooth, I'll tell you that much. He's disgusting.
"Medical fraud is a real problem, but the chiropractic portion of it is tiny." That's B.S. The chiropractors are wannabee doctors who never completed a fourth of what it takes to get an M.D. and go through residency. But they still want to make just as much money (or more). As the article states, they treat conditions that usually get better anyway with time, but the chiropracter takes the credit, and the ignorant public doesn't realize the difference! They constantly bring up the occasional deficiencies of real doctors to justify their actions. They are ok if they stick to the lower back and know when to refer if things don't inprove but their greed and ignorance in medicine often lead them to do inapropriate things. And on a much more frequent basis (per capita) than legitimate doctors.
How many chiropractors cut out the wrong kidney or prescribe the wrong poison that kills you?
Drug glazed surgeons are not my idea of real doctors.
I was a patient of Dr.Goroway at what was Flamingo Chiropractic. I was searching for my records for my VA claim, this is how I found this story.So where are the records from the now defunct "United Care Medical?"
This is about a bad doctor and human being vs. a bad chiropractor. You can sadly go to medical doctors who will spend five minutes with you as well. In practices (chiropractic) that I've been in, half and hour to fourty five minutes is closer to the norm. Medical fraud is a real problem, but the chiropractic portion of it is tiny. The electrodiagnostic tests you mention are medical tests, not chiropractic inventions. The vast majority of these are performed by MD's. I personally think they're overused, and never refer patients to them. Many legit MD's (and some Chiropractors) do have uses for them. Many MD's will order them automatically, even though they don't change treatment direction significantly. It is often considered medical "standard of care" to order them for pain down the arm or leg. The school he went to for chiropractic is one that the rest of the profession tried to strip it's license from, out of concern for the quality of teaching. He is not representative of the profession. While his goal may have been to have patients dependent, that's not a universal tenet of the profession. My goal is to get my patients better so they can fire me. It would have been nice if you'd bothered talking to a legit chiropractor, or contact the ACA for information of where he was different from the average chiro. Relying on the dregs and "critics of the profession" to discuss the profession is not accurate reporting. Also, just looking at the wikipedia article for the electrodiagnostic testing would tell you what it was for, instead of presenting it as a chiropractic scam.
I was once a patient, then employee of Dr. Goroway and he is one of the nicest guys that I have ever known. I remember him treating people for free and making people feel good about themselves who feel real crappy after accidents. He is an amazingly charismatic person and I was shocked to see this in the paper. I remember some of his struggles though and hope that everything works out for him. Happiness is only achievable when you are happy within David!
He may have been a nice guy. I've known several people who were nice on casual meeting but were nevertheless dishonest.
Find everything you're looking for in your city
Find the best happy hour deals in your city
Get today's exclusive deals at savings of anywhere from 50-90%
Check out the hottest list of places and things to do around your city
