Florida health care admin charged in $1B Medicare fraud case

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Florida health care admin charged in $1B Medicare fraud case
Updated 10:45 am, Saturday, July 29, 2017



MIAMI (AP) — A Florida health care administrator accepted bribes in exchange for helping a nursing home owner accused of orchestrating a $1 billion Medicare and Medicaid fraud scheme keep his license, federal prosecutors said.

Bertha Blanco, 66, faces federal criminal charges in a wide-ranging investigation that federal authorities are calling the nation's biggest health fraud case, The Miami Herald reported . She was charged earlier this month.

Blanco made about $31,300 a year overseeing inspections at nursing facilities owned by 48-year-old Philip Esformes, an extremely wealthy businessman who owns dozens of Miami-Dade nursing facilities as well as homes in Miami, Los Angeles and Chicago, prosecutors said.

A criminal complaint filed against Blanco accused her of taking tens of thousands of dollars in cash in exchange for tipping Esformes off about violations so he could address them before state inspections.

Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/crime/article/Florida-health-care-admin-charged-in-1B-Medicare-11656994.php

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http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/70c32g/picture164232507/alternates/FREE_1140/Bertha%20Blanco-2016

Bertha Blanco


Bribes to low-paid state worker key to $1 billion Miami Medicare fraud case, prosecutors say
BY JAY WEAVER

[e-mail]
JULY 29, 2017 7:00 AM

Philip Esformes is a fabulously rich businessman who once made more than $10 million in a single year from his network of Miami-Dade nursing and assisted living facilities. He also owns two homes next door to each other on exclusive North Bay Road in Miami Beach, along with numerous other properties in Miami, Chicago and Los Angeles.

Bertha Blanco, a former state administrator who lives in working-class Hialeah, made $31,281 a year overseeing inspections of the very same kinds of healthcare facilities in Miami-Dade. She was fired in late 2016 after working for 29 years at the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration.

Esformes, 48, and Blanco, 66, lived worlds apart but federal authorities say they were linked in a long-running $1 billion Medicare ripoff.

Esformes, charged last year in what has been touted as the nation’s biggest Medicare fraud case, supplied tens of thousands of dollars in cash to Blanco but never knew her. Prosecutors say the bribes were passed through four other people who have already pleaded guilty.

More:
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/article164232522.html




http://www.trbimg.com/img-57f3d683/turbine/ct-esformes-timeline-met-20161002/400/400x225


Philip Esformes

Esformes, his 1.6 million Ferrari Alperta, fitness blogs and Nursing Homes…

October 11, 2016



For years, wealthy nursing home operator Philip Esformes seemed to live in perpetual motion, using private jets to travel between his Water Tower Place condominium and his mansions in Miami and Los Angeles.

Now federal authorities are applying extraordinary court pressure to keep Esformes locked in a Florida detention cell where he awaits trial for allegedly orchestrating an unprecedented $1 billion Medicaid and Medicarebribery and kickback scheme.

“This is the largest single criminal health care fraud case ever brought against individuals by the Department of Justice,” Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell said at a July 22 news conference announcing the charges.

More:

https://lostmessiahdotcom.wordpress.com/tag/philip-esformes/




http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/p5ppr6/picture98188112/alternates/FREE_1140/AP_692075531324

Beach exec charged in $1 billion Medicare fraud struggles to get bail
BY JAY WEAVER
[e-mail]

AUGUST 27, 2016 7:00 AM

A long lineup of rabbis, friends and relatives have collectively pledged $3 million to secure the equivalent of a get-out-of-jail card for one of Florida's wealthiest healthcare operators, Philip Esformes, who has been detained since last month awaiting trial in a massive Medicare fraud case.

About 30 supporters have stepped up to help the Chicago transplant, who is being held in the Miami Federal Detention Center as he struggles to obtain a bond so he can move back into one of his side-by-side waterfront estates on exclusive North Bay Road in Miami Beach.

“The news of detainment and charges against [him] were both shocking and disheartening,” wrote Chicago Rabbi Avrohom Levin, head of a rabbinical college, who committed more than $2.2 million toward his bail. “Philip's name has always been synonymous with family and community.”

. . .

More significant, the judge found that Esformes runs the risk of obstructing justice because he had plotted last year with two co-conspirators charged with Medicare fraud to help one of them leave Miami for Israel to avoid trial. Unbeknown to Esformes, the co-conspirators, Guillermo and Gabriel Delgado, accused of sharing Medicare patients with him in a kickback scheme, recorded a two-hour conversation with him. It was carried out as part of the brothers’ cooperation deal with the feds to plead guilty.

More:
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article98188142.html

[ornotna]

1. It's Florida, what do you expect

But hey, at least we know who the next Governor is going to be.

[Midnight Writer]

5. When I read the header, I thought it would be a rehash of Rick Scott story.

[sandensea]

11. Whatever could you mean?

[WinkyDink]

2. Registered Republican (public records).

[Judi Lynn]

3. Thank you! n/t

[TexasBushwhacker]

4. It's not excuse for accepting bribes

But she was making $31K after working for the agency for THIRTY YEARS.

[Hortensis]

8. Yes, I noticed that. Appalling. I'd be a biased pick

for his jury for that alone.

[bleedinglib]

6. What are the odds

any of these crooks will go free?
Florida being controlled by the likes of rick scott
This is the tip of the ole iceberg !!
The media here in Missouri hasn't peeped a word about this huge fraud scheme??
This will quietly fade into the sunset & take all that taxpayer money with it !!!!

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

7. "tipping Esformes off about violations so he could address them before state inspections"

Is this a crime? Paying an inspector "under the table" to pre-inspect the homes so that defects could be fixed in advance? This almost sounds like "responsible ownership" rather than a crime.

[Honeycombe8]

9. This gives the alt-right more fodder to claim Medicare cuts are necessary - "it's a failed system."

Hate to hear this. Glad they caught them. What goes through people's minds, when they do stupid things like this? Do they really think they won't get caught?

[slater71]

10. So did our thief of a governor.