A Qui Tam is the “false claims act” or “king’s suit” against anyone stealing from the kind (state or federal government).

More details surface in nursing home case

David Jackson and Gary Marx, Tribune reporters

Court documents filed this week add new details to a whistle-blower lawsuit alleging that the giant pharmaceutical firm Omnicare Inc. paid kickbacks to one of Illinois’ most prominent nursing home families.

The new filing, which contains 164 pages of internal company records and other documents, is intended to bolster pending civil allegations that Omnicare significantly inflated the purchase price it paid in 2004 for a pharmacy company purportedly controlled by Chicago nursing home operators Philip Esformes and his father, Morris Esformes.

Omnicare’s $32 million purchase of that company, Total Pharmacy, included roughly $16 million that was a kickback to secure long-term pharmacy contracts with nearly three dozen nursing homes the Esformeses operated or influenced, the…