Glen Head doctor gets prison time for taking bribes

A Long Island doctor was sentenced Wednesday to three years and 10 months in federal prison for taking bribes from a New Jersey laboratory that paid off dozens of physicians in exchange for test referrals, authorities said.

Brett Halper, 41, of Glen Head, pleaded guilty in April in federal court in Newark, New Jersey. Halper, whose practice was in Rockville Centre, is among 38 people -- 26 of them doctors -- who have pleaded guilty in connection with the scheme run by Biodiagnostic Laboratory Services, of Parsippany, New Jersey, authorities said.

Halper admitted accepting monthly payments, sometimes exceeding $5,000, in exchange for referring patients' blood samples to the lab from 2011 to 2013, generating about $2.9 million in revenue for the facility. As part of his sentence, Halper must forfeit $325,000.

All told, the operation netted Biodiagnostic more than $100 million in Medicare and insurance payments, authorities said.