Owner of Numerous Miami-Area Home Health Agencies Sentenced- $66 Million Medicare Fraud Conspiracy

[nitpicker]

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/owner-numerous-miami-area-home-health-agencies-sentenced-20-years-prison-role-66-million

Department of Justice
Office of Public Affairs

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, February 28, 2018

Owner of Numerous Miami-Area Home Health Agencies Sentenced to 20 Years in Prison for Role in $66 Million Medicare Fraud Conspiracy

The owner and operator of numerous Miami, Florida-area home health agencies was sentenced to 240 months in prison today for his role in a $66 million conspiracy to defraud the Medicare program.
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Rafael Arias, 52, of Miami, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga of the Southern District of Florida, who ordered Arias to pay $66.4 million in restitution and to forfeit the gross proceeds traced to the offense. Arias pleaded guilty on Nov. 30, 2017, to one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and wire fraud.
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As part of his guilty plea, Arias admitted that, between December 2007 and September 2015, he was the owner and operator of more than 20 home health agencies. In many cases, however, Arias recruited nominee owners to falsely and fraudulently represent themselves as the agencies’ owners to hide his identity and ownership interest. Arias and his co-conspirators paid illegal bribes and kickbacks to patient recruiters to refer patients to these agencies, and submitted false and fraudulent home health care claims to Medicare for beneficiaries who, in many cases, did not qualify or for whom the services were never provided. In addition, Arias provided checks to other individuals and entities to cash so that Arias and his co-conspirators could obtain fraud proceeds to benefit themselves and further the fraudulent scheme.

Arias was charged along with Aylen Gonzalez, 39, of Hialeah, Florida; Ana Gabriela Mursuli Caballero, 51, of Miami; and Rafael Cabrera, 51, of Miami, in a July 2017 indictment. Gonzalez, a patient recruiter who owned a medical clinic and co-owned two home health agencies, pleaded guilty in November 2017 to one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and wire fraud and was sentenced to 180 months in prison. Mursuli Caballero, a patient recruiter and owner of two home health agencies, pleaded guilty in October 2017 to one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and wire fraud and was sentenced to 115 months in prison. Cabrera, who participated in laundering and concealing the proceeds from the fraud, pleaded guilty in November 2017 to one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering and was sentenced to 71 months in prison.
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