More than two dozen people from Florida were among 455 individuals charged in a $6.5 billion health care fraud and insurance scheme during a two-week federal enforcement operation, authorities announced.
Florida cases included a cardiologist accused of billing insurers for medically unnecessary screening tests for college athletes; three Tampa-area healthcare workers in a $118 million Medicare fraud involving unnecessary wound care and skin grafts; and a Miami man who directed a $3.76 billion scheme that billed Medicare, Medicaid and other insurers for phantom medical supplies.
Healthcare fraud has been a long-running priority for the Department of Justice, and news conferences announcing roundups and crackdowns have been common across the years. The Trump administration has made a point of emphasizing enforcement, including through the appointment of a new assistant attorney general, Colin McDonald, to help oversee prosecutions built from multiple specialized task forces.
“Today’s cases allege more than the theft of taxpayer dollars. Many allege the theft of human dignity,” McDonald said at a news conference Tuesday announcing this year's crackdown, which covers cases charged or unsealed since June 8. “Our sick, needy and elderly placing their faith in the gift of medicine were neglected, ignored and used for personal profit.”
Falsified student-athlete screenings
Ninety of those arrested were physicians, including Texas cardiologist Dr. Jason Finkelstein, 53, who faces charges of healthcare fraud and conspiracy worth $89 million in what prosecutors describe as a yearslong scheme that preyed on the fears of athletes that they could die on playing fields or courts of sudden cardiac arrest.
Finkelstein was accused of billing insurers for medically unnecessary cardiovascular screening tests for the student-athletes and then rubber-stamping the results as normal without personally reviewing them.
The Department of Justice said Finkelstein sometimes approved test results within seconds, despite knowing some athletes had possible cardiac abnormalities.
The alleged fraud ran between 2019 and the end of last year and, prosecutors said, involved Finkelstein and a pair of unidentified co-conspirators at a Boca Raton-based cardiovascular testing and treatment practice where he served as medical director.
Officials said the scheme had multiple components, with Finkelstein and his company using what the indictment said were deceptive marketing tactics to encourage and offer free heart screens for students who did not need them.
Finkelstein's co-conspirators, one from Broward County and the other from Palm Beach County, blasted emails to athletic trainers at colleges stating that the tests could identify any life-threatening condition that could prevent the students from playing, and also offered kickbacks and other inducements to school officials to refer potential patients for testing, according to the indictment.
Insurance companies do not cover blanket cardiovascular testing but instead require a prior finding of a medical necessity. To avert that roadblock, prosecutors said, Finkelstein submitted to insurers phony diagnoses of conditions, such as hypertension, that the athletes did not have.
His company relied on sonographers who lacked the credentials to travel to college campuses to perform the tests, and because Finkelstein was licensed in the 48 contiguous states, he and his company were able to submit claims for patients across the country, the indictment said.
In 2024, according to the indictment, he signed off on approximately 63 test result images of one patient just 11 seconds after accessing them. The test results actually revealed a significantly enlarged heart and the teenage patient later died on the basketball court, officials said.
“There is no way they could miss that, except they didn’t care,” said Dr. Mehmet Oz, a cardiothoracic surgeon and head of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. “This is not a diagnostic company. It’s a predatory scheme dressed up in medical clothing and we’re going to treat it as such.”
Medicare and Medicaid cons
Federal prosecutors said Sarasota nurse practitioner Leigh Tesar led one of the largest schemes in the takedown, billing Medicare more than $118 million for wound care and skin allografts that investigators say were unnecessary, ineligible for payment or never provided.
Investigators said Tesar targeted Medicare patients, including some whose wounds were infected, unlikely to heal or did not require the expensive grafts.
Two nurses, Walter Presha Jr. of Ellenton and Koby Evans of Apollo Beach, were also charged. Prosecutors said both referred Medicare patients to Tesar for wound care and received illegal kickbacks tied to the referrals.
In an unrelated arrest, prosecutors said Muniz Rodriguez of Hialeah helped create fraudulent medical clinics that billed Medicare for more than $117 million in skin substitutes and wound care products that were never provided. Investigators said Medicare paid more than $55 million on the false claims.
The DOJ said more than $27 million was seized from bank accounts belonging to 12 clinics in South Florida. Seizure warrants and civil forfeiture complaints allege that the clinics were “bust outs” – billing Medicare for amniotic wound allografts and services that were never provided.
In another case, a Las Vegas nurse practitioner, was charged in a $906 million Medicare and TRICARE fraud scheme involving medically unnecessary amniotic wound allografts tied to illegal kickbacks and bribes.
Prosecutors allege Marizel Yukee, 49, who ran mobile wound clinics in four states, targeted elderly and hospice patients and falsified records to justify the procedures while billing for unnecessary treatments.
Authorities in the case seized about $35.2 million in assets, including $467,000 in cash, eight vehicles including a $594,000 Ferrari 296 GTS, and jewelry including an $865,000 Bulgari necklace.
Back in Florida, the DOJ said Ibrahim Hilmi of Miami operated a scheme involving fraudulent durable medical equipment companies. Prosecutors said Hilmi controlled companies that submitted Medicaid claims for billions of dollars in equipment and wound dressings that were never provided.
The DOJ said Hilmi used company bank accounts to move fraud proceeds, including millions of dollars wired overseas. The department said the companies submitted at least $3.76 billion in claims, though about $5.7 million was actually deposited into the companies’ accounts.
“Health care fraud steals from taxpayers, exploits vulnerable patients, and puts lives at risk,” said U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “Today’s historic enforcement action sends a clear message: If you use our health care system to enrich yourself at the expense of patients or the American people, we will find you, we will prosecute you, and we will hold you accountable.”
Other Florida arrests
According to a release from the Justice Department, other Florida-related arrests include:
- Helen Crutcher Meadows, 49, of Tampa, was a supervisor at Lifehouse Inc., a nonprofit, faith-based substance abuse recovery program in West Virginia. She faces wire fraud charges, accused of falsifying time sheets for work not performed to receive reimbursement from federal and state programs.
- Leo Corrigan, 56, of Tampa, was charged with conspiracy involving purchasing Medicare beneficiary IDs, fraudulent COVID test billing, and kickbacks tied to over $7.5 million in Medicare claims.
- Lawrence Waldman, of Miami, entered a $5 million civil settlement and pleaded guilty in a kickback scheme involving unnecessary genetic and respiratory testing billed to Medicare, Medicaid, and TRICARE.
- Konstantin Braverman, 40, of Lake Worth, was charged with conspiracy to commit health care fraud, kickbacks, and money laundering in a COVID-19 Medicare testing scheme generating about $14.4 million in claims.
- Edward Scott Morrison, 58, of Pensacola Beach, was charged with unlawfully prescribing more than 25,500 controlled substance pills, including opioids and stimulants, without legitimate medical purpose or proper examinations.
- Jason Kashou, 40, of Coral Springs was charged as part of a $73 million Texas scam involving COVID-19 test kits. According to the indictment, he provided beneficiary information to two people who owned lab businesses, who used that information to bill Medicare for test kits that were sent to the beneficiaries who had not requested them.
- Taina Moore, 30, of Miami, the owner of a durable medical equipment company, was charged with conspiracy to pay healthcare kickbacks.
- Brandon Alan Aderhold, 35, of Glen St. Mary, was charged with an organized scheme to defraud Medicaid by overbilling nonemergency medical transportation through Camelot Transportation for about $53,534 between 2020 and 2023.
- Juan Stinus Brown, 58, of Fernandina Beach, was charged with an organized scheme to defraud Medicaid for overbilling nonemergency transportation services through Camelot Transportation totaling about $214,140.
- Tabatha Nicole Keller, 41, of St. Augustine, was charged with an organized scheme to defraud Medicaid for allegedly overbilling nonemergency transport services through Camelot Transportation, totaling about $79,417.
- James Samuel Singleton, 41, of Orange Park, was charged with an organized scheme to defraud Medicaid for overbilling nonemergency medical transportation services through Camelot Transportation for about $132,717.
- Noel Camacho, 41, of Hialeah Gardens, was charged with Medicaid provider fraud for allegedly submitting about $227,494 in fraudulent psychosocial rehabilitation claims through Healthy Futures Wellness Center using false records and kickback arrangements.
- Ratevia Checondra Hunter, 45, of Miami, was charged with Medicaid provider fraud for causing about $83,470 in false home health care claims for services allegedly not provided while recipients were unavailable.
- Tavares Tyrone Hankins, 46, of Jacksonville, was charged with an organized scheme to defraud Medicaid by overbilling nonemergency transportation services through Camelot Transportation, receiving about $104,354 between 2021 and 2023.
- Eleyn Mirurgia Sanchez, 32, of North Lauderdale, was charged with Medicaid provider fraud and illegal proprietorship after allegedly enrolling a dental practice using forged dentist credentials and submitting about $79,966 in false claims.
- Tymeka Eridder Spears, 46, of Jacksonville, was charged with Medicaid provider fraud for billing about $47,158 for personal care services allegedly never provided to Medicaid recipients.
- Venessa K. Thomas, 38, of Ormond Beach, was charged with Medicaid provider fraud and identity-related offenses after allegedly submitting 2,696 fraudulent telehealth mental health claims totaling about $261,804.
Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.
