Among Florida residents, 193 people indicted The U.S. Department of Justice recently conducted a nationwide fraud crackdown focused on healthcare for seniors and people with disabilities.
Attorney General Merrick Garland The charges were announced Thursday. It has accused doctors, nurses and others across the country of a variety of fraud schemes, including a $900 million fraud scheme that preyed on dying patients in Arizona.
The Florida defendants include Eva LeBeau, 65, of Clearwater, and Lori LeBrecht, 60, of Largo. They are charged with conspiracy to fraud in an illegal kickback scheme involving Prestige Senior Home Health Care Inc. in Pinellas County. LeBeau was the owner of the company and LeBrecht was the director of nursing.
Prosecutors said they submitted false and fraudulent claims totaling more than $2 million for home health care services.
Prosecutors also charged Eric Brewer, 28, an intensive care unit nurse from Lakeland. Brewer is accused of stealing IV bags of fentanyl from a Tampa hospital and, in some cases, extracting the fentanyl from patients’ IV bags.
In a separate case, Lisa Williams, 56, of Lithia, was indicted on six counts of tampering with a consumer product and six counts of fraudulently obtaining a controlled substance for allegedly illegally obtaining and tampering with fentanyl IV bags at a hospital.
Ma Gracia Cadet, 53, of Kissimmee, and Marquez Elijah Green, 29, of Windermere, signed plea agreements last week after being charged in separate cases with conspiring to commit millions of dollars of health insurance fraud.
Prosecutors allege that Cadet’s conspiracy involved at least $9.3 million in Medicare funds and Green’s conspiracy involved more than $3.4 million in false claims for medical equipment.
Erin Kim, a 54-year-old nurse from Orlando, is accused of conspiring with other employees of Dawn, a California-based digital healthcare company, to illegally supply Adderall to patients who did not have a medical need for it. Prosecutors say Kim prescribed 1.5 million pills and received $800,000 in compensation.
Robert Dessel, 46, of Sarasota; He was charged with fraud conspiracy in connection with a scheme to pay illegal kickbacks to patient recruiters in exchange for referring Medicare beneficiaries for medically unnecessary cancer genetic tests.
Lawrence Waldman, 57, of Miami, who worked as a sales representative for ASAP Labs, is charged with fraud conspiracy in connection with a scheme to submit false claims to Medicare. Prosecutors allege that Waldman used his position to obtain swabs for genetic and respiratory viral panel tests from Medicare beneficiaries.
Authorities allege Waldman and his co-conspirators used test swabs and invoices containing forged and unauthorized physician signatures to obtain approximately $380,000 in illegal bribes.
A total of 193 people have been indicted in a series of separate cases filed over a roughly two-week period in the nationwide health care fraud investigation.
Authorities seized more than $230 million in cash, luxury vehicles and other assets.
The Department of Justice regularly conducts such large-scale health care fraud operations with the goal of deterring other potential fraudsters.
This report used information from WGCU in Fort Myers and The Associated Press.
