Posted on Wed, Aug. 04, 2004
US: Records destroyed in $8 million Broward Medicare fraud
CATHERINE WILSON
Associated Press
MIAMI - Three men charged in an $8 million Medicare scam caved in a roof, toppled over file cabinets and watered down the paperwork to thwart investigators just before government auditors were due to inspect their records, prosecutors charged Wednesday.The allegations are part of a 324-count indictment tying 14 defendants to a long-running fraud, which primarily involved recruiting patients at assisted living centers for respiratory therapy they didn't need or weren't examined for, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Nicholson.
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Ricardo Choi, owner of Sample Road Rehabilitation Center, was the only one of three alleged ringleaders taken into custody. He was jailed pending a bond hearing Aug. 11. His attorney had no comment.Charges also covered illegal money moves, kickbacks paid to recruiters of patients, and operations at three clinics: Cresthaven, Florida Health Institute and Comprehensive Health Professional. Records were destroyed at Comprehensive.
Choi's mother-in-law, Maria Elena Hernandez, worked at Florida Health Institute and paid patient recruiters, the indictment charged.
Six defendants also are charged with conspiring to obstruct justice by fabricating patient records and forging prescriptions and treatment plans after a judge issued orders four years ago to freeze assets and maintain records.
One of the defendants is Rene De Lamar, 83, a retired physician who was brought to court in a wheelchair. Defense attorney Hugo Rodriguez said De Lamar gave up his medical license three years ago after he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. He was sentenced to house arrest in the state case.
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http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/state/9320049.htm~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Florida is a great place for Medicare Fraud. Jeb Bush's long time friend, Cuban "exile" Miguel Recarey, pulled off what has been viewed as the largest Medicare fraud in U.S. history, before he went into hiding:
JEB BUSH. In 1987, Miguel Recarey, a longstanding business associate of Tampa Mafia boss Santos Trafficante, fled the U.S. under three indictments for labor racketeering, illegal wiretapping, and Medicare fraud.1 His firm, International Medical Centers (IMC), which was America’s largest health maintenance organization for the elderly and which had received $1 billion in Medicare funds, collapsed.2 Recarey’s HMO left $222 million in unpaid bills,3 and was suspected of up to $100 million in Medicare fraud.4 “IMC is the classic case of embezzlement of government funds,” said William Teich, who headed the U.S. Office of Labor Racketeering in Miami. Teich called it a “bust-out operation” where money was “drained out the back door” and disappeared down “a black hole.”5
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http://www.campaignwatch.org/more1.htm#jebJeb and Miguel Recarey
With Miami awash in empty office space in 1986, it was no small event when bagged International Medical Centers as a key tenant for Padreda's HUD-financed building. IMC, which leased nearly all the space in Padreda's vacant building, was at the time one of the nation's fastest-growing health-maintenance organizations (HMO) and had become the largest recipient of federal Medicare funds.
IMC was run by Cuban-American Miguel Recarey, a character with a host of idiosyncrasies. He carried a 9-mm Heckler & Koch semiautomatic pistol under his suit coat and kept a small arsenal of AR-15 and Uzi assault rifles at his Miami estate, where his bedroom was protected by bullet-proof windows and a steel door. It apparently wasn't his enemies Recarey feared so much as his friends. He had a long-standing relationship with Miami Mafia godfather Santo Trafficante, Jr., and had participated in the illfated, CIA-inspired mob assassination plot against Fidel Castro in the early 1960s. (Associates of Recarey add that Trafficante was the money behind Recarey's business ventures.)
Recarey's brother, Jorge, also had ties to the CIA. So it was no surprise that IMC crawled with former spooks. Employee résumés were studded with references to the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the Cuban Intelligence agency; there was even a fellow who claimed to have been a KGB agent, An agent with the U.S. Office of Labor Racketeering in Miami would later describe IMC as a company in which "a criminal enterprise interfaced with intelligence operations." Recarey also surrounded himself with those who could influence the political system. He hired Jeb Bush as IMC's "real-estate consultant." Though Jeb would never close a single real-estate deal, his contract called for him to earn up to $250,000 (he actually received $75,000). Jeb's real value to Recarey was not in real estate but in his help in facilitating the largest HMO Medicare fraud in U.S. history.
Jeb phoned top Health and Human Services officials in Washington in 1985 to lobby for a special exemption from HHS rules for IMC. This highly unusual waiver was critical to Recarey's scam. Without it, the company would have been limited to a Medicare patient load of 50 percent. The balance of IMC's patients would have had to be private -- that is, paying -- customers. Recarey preferred the steady flow of federal Medicare money to the thought of actually running a real HMO. Former HHS chief of staff McClain Haddow (who later became a paid consultant to IMC) testified in 1987 Jeb that directly phoned then-HHS secretary Margaret Heckler and that it was that call that swung the decision to approve IMCs waiver.
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http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/1992/09/bushboys.html
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