Juliette Anais Tamayo, Health Care Fraud, FL 2023

MIAMI – Juliette Anais Tamayo, 54, the owner of Miami-based Sunshine Medical Care Group Inc., has been sentenced to serve 91 months in prison for her involvement in a $2.5 million health care fraud scheme.

The grim announcement was made by Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Ariana Fajardo Orshan of the Southern District of Florida. Tamayo, who has previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit health care fraud and wire fraud, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Cecilia Altonaga.

In a sordid tale of greed and deceit, Tamayo was charged with selling medically unnecessary home health care prescriptions to Miami-area home health agency owners who then billed Medicare. She solicited kickbacks from recruiters and agency owners for providing fraudulent prescriptions through Sunshine Medical Care Group Inc. The kicker? A portion of those kickbacks were paid to physicians at the clinic in exchange for writing the falsified prescriptions.

According to court documents, Tamayo’s deceitful schemes also included billing Medicare directly for services that were not necessary or not provided. The investigation was led by the FBI, HHS-OIG, and USSS, with trial attorneys Adam G. Yoffie, Gary A. Winters, and Sara Clingan of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section prosecuting the case.

The Medicare Fraud Strike Force, a joint initiative between the Department of Justice and HHS, has been waging war on such fraud since 2007, charging nearly 4,000 defendants who have collectively billed the Medicare program for over $14 billion. This sentence sends a stark reminder that health care fraud will not be tolerated.

With Tamayo’s sentence handed down, justice has been served, but the fight against health care fraud continues in the grim landscape of white-collar crime.

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