MEDICARE FRAUD TASK FORCE DEFENDANT SENTENCED TO FEDERAL PRISON FOR 10 YEARS FOR CONSPIRING TO DEFRAUD MEDICARE FOR OVER $17 MILLION DOLLARS

June 13, 2007

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 

R. Alexander Acosta, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Alice Fisher, Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division, Melody Jackson, Special Agent in Charge, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Inspector General, and Jonathan I. Solomon, Special Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, announce today that defendant Ricardo R. Aguera, a/k/a Pichi, the owner of three Miami durable medical equipment (DME) companies, was sentenced to 121 months’ imprisonment, 3 years supervised release, and approximately $1.7 million dollars in restitution for defrauding the Medicare program of $17,373,000.

Defendant Aguera owned three Miami companies, FNA Services, Poey Medical Services, and Atlantis Pro-Med Inc., all of which were involved in his scheme to defraud Medicare. Since 1999, Aguera had been paying Medicare beneficiaries throughout Miami-Dade County to gain access to their Medicare information. After gaining access to their Medicare cards, Aguera billed Medicare for unnecessary services on behalf of these patients, including oxygen concentrator and nebulizers. Some of these patients testified against Aguera at trial, admitting that they were paid, that they did not need the treatments or medication, and that the medication, when received, was thrown in the trash. The patients testified that they participated in the scheme because they needed the money. According to trial testimony, Aguera paid $100 per month if the patients agreed to accept unneeded aerosol medications, such as albuterol, and $150 per month if the patients agreed to take an oxygen concentrator also.

Aguera obtained the aerosol medications from co-conspirator pharmacy owners, Henry Gonzalez and Alfonso Rodriguez. In addition to referring his paid patients to these pharmacies, Aguera helped the pharmacy owners get other DME owners to bring their paid patients. From 2000 to 2003, the pharmacies billed the Medicare program for over $20 million.

U.S. Attorney Acosta stated, “The Medicare Fraud Task Force teams are working diligently to investigate and prosecute individuals who steal from the Medicare trust. The goal is to bring these fraudsters to justice and to help preserve scarce Medicare resources for those who need it most – the ill, the elderly and the disabled.”

Mr. Acosta and Ms. Fisher commended the investigative efforts of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Inspector General, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The case was prosecuted by Kirk Ogrosky, Deputy Chief of the Fraud Section of the Department of Justice, and Jeffrey A. Neiman, Trial Attorney in the Fraud Section of the Department of Justice in Washington, DC.

A copy of this press release may be found on the website of the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida at http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/fls. Related court documents and information may be found on the website of the District Court for the Southern District of Florida at http://www.flsd.uscourts.gov or on http://pacer.flsd.uscourts.gov.

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