Miami HIV Clinic Scammers Sentenced
Husband and wife who ran Medicare fraud scheme going to jail
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TEL AVIV, ISRAEL - SEPTEMBER 18: Israeli nurse Gina Eshkol (R) has a blood sample drawn before being vaccinated against smallpox September 18, 2002 at Tel Aviv's Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv, Israel. Health and emergency workers are being innoculated against the disease in case of an Iraqi biological weapon attack. Israeli officials say the Jewish State has more than double the Smallpox vaccine needed for the whole population. Baghdad launched 39 Scud missiles against Israel during the 1991 Gulf War. (Photo by David Silverman/Getty Images)
The husband and wife owners of a Miami HIV/AIDS clinic convicted of running a $5.8 million health care fraud scheme involving the man's 76-year-old aunt are both headed to prison.
David Marrero, 49, owner of Tendercare Medical Center Inc., was sentenced to 10 years behind bars Thursday after he was found guilty of health care fraud, money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering, according to the South Florida Business Journal.
Ex-wife Maria Valero Marrero was sentenced to nearly six years in the scheme that ran from January 2005 to December 2007. The couple must also pay $2.7 million in restitution.
According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, Marrero began billing Medicare for injection and infusion medications that were supposed to be treating HIV and AIDS related blood disorders.
After he recruited Medicare beneficiaries to his business, he submitted claims for treatments the patients didn't need, raking in $2.7 million for submitting $5.8 million in the claims.
In perhaps the most dastardly part of the scam, Marrero recruited his elderly aunt to pose as an HIV-positive patient with multiple blood disorders.
In that case, Tendercare submitted claims for an excessive amount of medication on the 76-year-old's first visit, as much as 100 units or about one liter of meds, which would have been medically impossible to inject into someone.
Medicare was billed over $10,000 for that visit, even though it was proved at trial that the aunt wasn't HIV positive and had no blood disorders.
During the trial, a Tendercare employee testified that Marrero had trained her on how to manipulate blood tests to make them come out HIV positive.
Posted Friday, Jul 30, 2010 - 11:17 AM EST
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