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Lazaro Acosta Pleads Guilty to Medicare Fraud Scheme
A Miami-area resident pleaded guilty to participating in a $200 million Medicare fraud scheme, announced the FBI and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Lazaro Acosta, 41, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Patricia A. Seitz in Miami to one count of currency structuring to avoid reporting requirements.
According to the plea agreement, Acosta structured currency transactions to avoid reporting requirements so he could provide $2.4 million in cash to the owners and operators of American Therapeutic Corporation (ATC); its management company, Medlink Professional Management Group Inc.; and the American Sleep Institute (ASI).
On March 21, 2012, Acosta’s co-defendant, Leyanes Placeres, 31, pleaded guilty before U.S. Magistrate Judge Andrea Simonton in Miami to one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States and to pay and receive illegal health care kickbacks.
ATC, Medlink and ASI were Florida corporations headquartered in Miami. ATC operated purported partial hospitalization programs (PHPs) in seven different locations throughout South Florida and Orlando. A PHP is a form of intensive treatment for severe mental illness. ASI purported to provide diagnostic sleep disorder testing.
According to court filings, ATC’s owners and operators paid kickbacks to owners and operators of assisted living facilities and halfway houses and to patient brokers in exchange for delivering ineligible patients to ATC and ASI. In some cases, the patients received a portion of those kickbacks. Throughout the course of the ATC and ASI conspiracy, millions of dollars in kickbacks were paid in exchange for Medicare beneficiaries to attend illegitimate treatment programs so that ATC and ASI could bill Medicare for medically unnecessary services.
Lazaro Acosta admitted that he worked with Lawrence Duran, one of the owners and operators of ATC, Medlink and ASI, to use fake identities and create fake Medlink employees. Those fake identities were used to cash thousands of dollars of checks each week through a check cashing business co-owned by Acosta, South Dade Trade Interprises. Placeres admitted that she served as a driver who worked with patient brokers to provide patients to ATC and ASI in exchange for kickbacks in the form of checks and cash.
Acosta’s structuring amounted to more than $2.4 million in structured funds, and Placeres’s participation in the ATC fraud resulted in $6.5 million in fraudulent billings to the Medicare program. Sentencing for Acosta is scheduled for June 28, 2012. Acosta faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, and he has agreed to forfeit $162,000 to the federal government. Sentencing for Placeres is scheduled for June 11, 2012. Placeres faces a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Key Facts
- State: Federal
- Category: White Collar Crime
- Source: DOJ Press Release â†â€â€
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