Marc Aaron Potash

Introduction

Marc Aaron Potash, 57, of Rockville, Maryland, the founder and chief executive of the Gaithersburg testing company Tiero, LLC, was indicted by a federal grand jury on October 9, 2026, for his alleged role in a COVID-19 healthcare fraud scheme totaling more than $100 million. Federal prosecutors allege that between January 2022 and May 2026 Potash and co-conspirators billed Medicare, Medicaid, the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program and other insurers more than $100 million for laboratory COVID-19 testing that never happened — while actually mailing customers cheap, over-the-counter, self-administered test kits. The scheme allegedly netted Tiero more than $50 million in insurance payments and funded, prosecutors say, a Range Rover, a Mercedes-Benz and $4 million in real estate.

Background Information

Potash ran Tiero, LLC, a company located in Gaithersburg, Maryland, in the Washington-area suburbs, presenting it as a clinical laboratory capable of processing COVID-19 tests. To make that presentation credible, the indictment alleges, Potash and his co-conspirators sent false emails, letters and paperwork to the Maryland Department of Health to obtain a Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA) certification — documents that falsely portrayed Tiero’s medical providers as performing on-site COVID-19 testing at the company’s purported lab. The CLIA license was the key that unlocked insurance billing: with it, Tiero could submit claims that looked like covered laboratory services.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Indicted, not convicted. Potash is charged with conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud, seven counts of healthcare fraud and five counts of conducting transactions in criminally derived proceeds. As the Justice Department itself noted in announcing the charges, an indictment is not a finding of guilt, and Potash is presumed innocent unless proven guilty.

With the CLIA certification in hand, the indictment alleges, Potash and his co-conspirators submitted claims to insurers listing false dates of service, a fake place of service and a phony rendering provider — claims styled as if a Tiero provider had administered or analyzed each test. In reality, prosecutors say, the company “merely shipped over-the-counter, self-administered COVID-19 tests to insured individuals across the country.” The false claims totaled more than $100 million, of which insurers paid Tiero more than $50 million. The indictment also alleges Potash spent the proceeds on a Range Rover, a Mercedes-Benz, $4 million in Beallsville, Maryland real property, and two security transfers totaling more than $4 million and $8 million respectively.

U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland Kelly O. Hayes announced the indictment alongside the FBI’s Washington Field Office, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General, and the federal Office of Personnel Management’s inspector general. The prosecution is part of the Trump Administration’s Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, whose work the department said supports the National Fraud Enforcement Division created in April 2026 with a mandate to combat fraud in federal benefit programs. If convicted, Potash faces a maximum of 10 years in federal prison for each count of conspiracy, healthcare fraud and transactions in criminally derived property.

Public Reaction and Consequences

The indictment made Potash one of the largest alleged COVID-era billing fraud defendants charged in Maryland, and it arrived with the Justice Department explicitly framing the case as a signature prosecution of pandemic-program abuse. WTOP and CBS Baltimore carried the charging announcement, noting the 2022-to-2026 span of the alleged scheme and the centerpiece allegation: tests billed as clinical laboratory work that were, in fact, mass-shipped home kits. The maximum penalties — up to a decade per count across thirteen felony counts — give the case potential exposure measured in decades.

Current Status

Potash was charged by indictment on October 9, 2026, and has not been tried; no conviction has been entered and no guilty plea has been reported. His company’s CLIA-based billing, per the indictment, ran from January 2022 through May 2026. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Megan S. McKoy and Joshua Rosenthal of the District of Maryland. No trial date was included in the charging announcement, and no public statement from Potash or an attorney representing him appears in the coverage to date.

Impact on Their Career/Life

A founder who spent four years building a pandemic testing business is now a thirteen-count federal defendant whose alleged shortcut — mailing home kits and billing them as laboratory work — is the entire theory of the government’s case. The indictment seeks to claw back the narrative of Tiero’s success: the cars, the Beallsville property and the security transfers are itemized in charging documents as criminally derived spending, and the company’s CLIA license is recast as the product of false paperwork to Maryland regulators. Whatever the trial brings, Potash’s name is now attached to one of the largest COVID-19 healthcare-fraud indictments in Maryland.

Sources

• “Maryland Man Facing Federal Indictment for Role in COVID-19 Healthcare Fraud Scheme Totaling More Than $100M” — U.S. Department of Justice, District of Maryland: source
• “Maryland man faces charges in more than $100M COVID-19 healthcare scheme” — WTOP: source
• “Federal indictment accuses Maryland man of $100 million COVID-19 test fraud scheme” — CBS Baltimore: source