Four Florida individuals have been sentenced for their role in a $54.3 million health care fraud scheme in which they paid kickbacks and bribes to telemarketers and physicians to secure orders for medically unnecessary prescriptions.
From approximately 2018 through 2021, four individuals who owned and operated pharmacies paid kickbacks to telemarketing companies in exchange for recruiting Medicare beneficiaries to accept medically unnecessary prescriptions for various medications, the Justice Department said in a Dec. 2 news release.
The co-conspirators then paid kickbacks and bribes to telemedicine companies that employed physicians who signed the prescriptions, often after a cursory telephone conversation with the patient or with no contact at all.
Here are the four individuals and their sentences:
- Luis Lacerda (West Palm Beach): Sentenced to three years and five months and must forfeit $15,600,333 and pay $54,303,526 in restitution
- Omar Solari (Fort Lauderdale): Sentenced to two years and six months and must forfeit $6,341,240 and pay $36,246,251 in restitution
- Michael Murphy (Fort Lauderdale): Sentenced to 15 months and must forfeit $3,650,943 and pay $8,374,175 in restitution
- Joelson Viveros (Boca Raton): Sentenced to five years of probation and must forfeit $894,116 and pay $3,017,135 in restitution