FBI nab man accused in Medicare fraud case

[Judi Lynn]

FBI nab man accused in Medicare fraud case
Posted on Monday, 03.28.11

Ernesto Angel Montaner, a fugitive extradited from Costa Rica, faces Medicare fraud charges after an FBI sting operation.

http://media.miamiherald.com/smedia/2011/03/28/22/B82659994Z.1_20110328220533_000+GLS2GIQF3.4-0.embedded.prod_affiliate.56.jpg


Ernesto Angel Montaner, pictured, and his son, Ernesto
Montaner, are accused of operating a network of
physical therapy clinics in Miami-Dade that submitted
millions of dollars in phony bills to the federal
healthcare program for the elderly and disabled between
2003 and 2008.
COURTESY FBI


A few years ago, Ernesto Angel Montaner was overheard bragging at a wedding reception that the FBI would never be able to touch him —since he’d been the only defendant acquitted in a vast healthcare fraud case in the 1990s.

He doesn’t have much to boast about anymore. He’s stuck behind bars at a federal detention center in downtown Miami awaiting trial on Medicare fraud charges.

Montaner, a member of a prominent Cuban exile family, was extradited in late February from Costa Rica, where he had fled in early 2009. That was one year before prosecutors charged him, his son and a business partner with conspiring to bilk the taxpayer-funded Medicare program by submitting millions of dollars in false claims at their rehabilitation clinics.

The son and partner have pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud; the father has pleaded not guilty.

More:
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/03/28/2138890/fbi-nab-man-accused-in-medicare.html

[Judi Lynn]

1. For those of you who have been familiar with his brother, you may have believed you were going nuts

when you saw the photo.

I just found a post on the message board beneath the story which will put things right!

The Herald didn't mention it but his Brother is the Staunch Conservative Anti-Castro Columnist, none other then Carlos Alberto Montaner, whose Columns appear here in the Herald. Columnist Carlos is shying away with "No Comments" about his Brother's Alleged Medicare Scamming. How is it these Families here in Miami profess to "know nothing" about their Relatives conning Medicare out of Millions? I mean when they purchase Kendall or Coral Gables Mansions, New Bentleys ect, don't the relatives wonder where the $$$ came from? Wouldn't they think the New Arrivals robbed a Bank(s) or something similiar? Many times these Scammers have little education to generate these huge incomes in such little time. For many families, this should raise an eyebrow/suspicions, of how their relatives generated these huge incomes. In the case of the Benitez Brothers (who owned St Jude Medical Clinic on sw 27 th ave in miami) they could barely speak english, had no formal education, let alone comprehend the complicated medicare langauge to the point they could manipulate them and wring out Millions of $$$$. In the Case of the Bentiez Brothers, they conned Medicare out of $87,000,000.00 All this and they didn't arrive from Cuba until around 2000, made their Citizenship around 2005, opened the clinics and extorted $87 Million in a few short years, then headed back home to La Patria around 2009. Simply incredible,,,

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/03/28/2138890_p2/fbi-nab-man-accused-in-medicare.html#ixzz1HyN3LTyb

On edit:

http://www.gacetadecuba.com.nyud.net:8090/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/carlos_alberto_montaner.jpg

Carlos Alberto Montaner

[Judi Lynn]

2. Earlier story on the fraud: Focus of Medicare fraud case transfers to alleged ringleader

Posted on Friday, 09.10.10
Focus of Medicare fraud case transfers to alleged ringleader
.Prosecutors are building a major Medicare fraud case against the one-time fugitive ringleader of a Miami-Dade network of rehab clinics that allegedly fleeced the federal government.
BY JAY WEAVER
[e-mail]

~snip~
The Montaners' clinics -- Infinity Therapy, Mega Therapy Center, Miami-Dade Medical Group and Florida Rehabilitation Clinic -- submitted millions of dollars in phony claims for rehab services that were either unnecessary or never provided between 2006 and 2008, according to charges filed in April. The case highlighted the spread of Medicare fraud from medical equipment, HIV infusion and diabetic scams to rehab therapy schemes in Miami-Dade.

Ernesto Angel Montaner is the brother of Spain-based columnist Carlos Alberto Montaner, a longtime critic of the Castro government. Carlos Montaner has declined to discuss the investigation. His columns are published in The Miami Herald, El Nuevo Herald and other newspapers.

Ernesto Angel Montaner, indicted in April, fled to Costa Rica in February 2009 -- five months after the FBI executed a search warrant at his four medical clinics, prosecutors said.

Ernesto Angel Montaner's indictment was the second time he was charged with healthcare fraud. In the late 1990s, he was acquitted of participating in a massive home healthcare scheme that led to the convictions of former Republican state Sen. Alberto Gutman, his wife Marci and several others for submitting $15 million in false bills to Medicare.

More:
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/09/10/1816871/focus-of-medicare-fraud-case-transfers.html