Home Health & Hospice Week
Kickbacks Conspiracy Yields Guilty Verdicts
Florida court convicted four individuals of kickbacks conspiracy charges related to home health services. A jury found Marianela Terrero, Daymi Fuentes Gil, Olga Martinez Rodriguez and Joel Loyola guilty of conspiracy to pay and receive health care kickbacks. The owner of Superstar Home Health Care, Inc., a Miami-based HHA, allegedly paid kickbacks to individuals for referring Medicare beneficiaries to serve as patients, reports the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of Florida. The four defendants will face sentencing on Feb. 19, 2013.
The court convicted Terrero of accepting kickbacks for his referrals, while Gil, Loyola and Rodriguez allegedly accepted kickbacks in exchange for acting as patients of Superstar. These defendants were among 18 total defendants charged with the kickbacks conspiracy involving Superstar.
Superstar’s president and manager Vivian Augustine pled guilty, along with 12 other co-defendants, ranging from employees to patient recruiters to Medicare beneficiaries. Another defendant, Pablo Orama, also pled guilty to kickbacks charges and received a sentence of 46 months in prison, followed by three years supervised release.
Home Health & Hospice Week
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Kickbacks Conspiracy Yields Guilty Verdicts
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