LAWFUEL – Legal Newswire – R. Alexander Acosta, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Jonathan I. Solomon, Special Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Miami Field Office, Melody Jackson, Special Agent in Charge, United States Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General, Atlanta Regional Office, Anthony Mangione, Special Agent in Charge, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Miami, and Bill McCollum, Attorney General, State of Florida today announced that defendants Sahily Penichet and Amaury Oquendo each were sentenced to thirty-month imprisonment for their roles in separate Medicare billing fraud schemes. Penichet was sentenced today by U.S. District Court Judge Ursula Ungaro in Criminal Case Number 07-20749. Oquendo was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge Alan S. Gold in Criminal Case Number 07-20676.
Both Penichet and Oquendo owned fraudulent durable medical equipment (“DME”) companies, located in Miami-Dade County, Florida, and submitted false DME claims to Medicare for reimbursement. The two companies submitted just under $14 million dollars in false Medicare claims for items never provided to Medicare beneficiaries. As a result of the two schemes, Medicare paid out more than $3 million dollars to the two companies. A joint multi-agency operation, begun earlier this year, investigated these matters and successfully recovered more than $2.2 million of the fraud proceeds.
Mr. Acosta commended the investigative efforts of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General, Atlanta Regional Office, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Miami, and Office of the Florida Attorney General. These cases were prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey E. Marcus.
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 www.usdoj.gov/usao/fls. Related court documents and information may be found on the website of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida at www.flsd.uscourts.gov or on http://pacer.flsd.uscourts.gov.
