The state's medical university took in $36 million in illegal Medicare and Medicaid payments as part of a kickback scheme designed to bolster its troubled cardiac surgery program, and top school officials conspired to cover it all up, according to the school's federal monitor.

The scheme involved 18 cardiologists at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey who were given essentially no-show teaching jobs at salaries of $150,000 or more. In return, they were expected to refer patients to the cardiac surgery program, the monitor alleges in a report sent to the U.S. Attorney and expected to be released tomorrow. The doctors were paid almost $6 million over four years.