A couple convicted with health-care fraud failed to convince a federal appeals court that their attorneys improperly withheld the potential civil consequences of their criminal guilty pleas.
Nita and Kirtish Patel can’t vacate their sentences under the Sixth Amendment since it doesn’t require attorneys to advise them about “collateral” consequences of their pleas, a Friday opinion for the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit said.
The court further ruled that the Patels’ civil liability under the False Claims Act stands even in light of the US Supreme Court’s 2010 Padilla v. Kentucky ruling, which held that attorneys must ...