Three plead guilty to $17 million Medicare fraud

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Miami Herald

Posted on Friday, 11.14.08
PEMBROKE PINES
Three plead guilty to $17 million Medicare fraud
A Pembroke Pines couple and the man's brother have pleaded guilty to bilking Medicare of $17 million.

BY JAY WEAVER
[e-mail]
David and Laura Hernandez were living large in Southwest Broward -- in a 4,000-square-foot home with a swimming pool.

Their meal ticket: Medicare fraud.
On Thursday, the Hernandezes -- along with David's brother, Jose Miguel Hernandez of Hialeah -- pleaded guilty in federal court to a scheme to defraud the taxpayer-funded healthcare program.

Over the past decade, the family-run enterprise of medical equipment and billing companies submitted more than $17 million in false claims to Medicare, they admitted in court.

Their haul: $5 million.
Whatever the three family members have left of that, they have to refund to the U.S. government under a forfeiture order. The couple also must give up their $433,000 Pembroke Pines home, their bank accounts and retirement funds.

David Hernandez, a 41-year-old Cuban immigrant whose last year of education was ninth grade in Miami-Dade County, was the ringleader who recruited ''straw'' business owners, Medicare patients and others to carry out his family's scam against the federal government. At his sentencing in February, he faces up to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy, healthcare fraud and money-laundering charges.




Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/miami-dade/story/770450.html

[Submariner]

1. Send them to GITMO so their relatives can visit them

Float them over in a inner tube. No wonder our health care costs are through the roof with scum like this sneaking into the country.

[emilyg]

2. Jesus H

what rotten people.