Miami, Florida – A former South Florida pharmacy executive was sentenced today to seven and a half years in prison for defrauding Tricare and CHAMPVA of approximately $88 million through a compounding pharmacy fraud scheme.
Matthew Smith, 58, of Boca Raton, Florida, pleaded guilty on January 24, 2022, to one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud. His executive assistant, Alisa Catoggio, 41, also of Boca Raton, Florida, pleaded guilty on May 17, 2022, to one count of conspiring to pay healthcare kickbacks.
In connection with the plea, Smith admitted his role in submitting fraudulent claims to Tricare and CHAMPVA for expensive, medically unnecessary compound drugs through a Broward pharmacy. Tricare and CHAMPVA are the health care benefit programs for the United States Department of Defense and Department of Veterans Affairs.
In furtherance of the scheme, Smith paid kickbacks to patient recruiters in exchange for their recruiting beneficiaries and referring prescriptions for the medically unnecessary drugs. For her role, Catoggio calculated and tracked the kickbacks and sham co-pay assistance programs used to further the scheme.
The fraudulent referrals caused an actual loss to the government programs of approximately $88 million. In addition to the prison sentence, the Court imposed restitution in the amount of $75,106,971.
DCIS, FBI Miami, VA-OIG, and FDA-OCI investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jon Juenger prosecuted the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Daren Grove is handling the asset forfeiture component of the case.
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Key Facts
- State: Florida
- Category: Health Care Fraud
- Source: DOJ Press Release â†â€â€
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