Tag Archives: Margarita Acevedo

Miami couple faces lengthy sentence for Medicare fraud

Lawrence Duran was a Miami healthcare executive who regularly lobbied Congress in favor of legislation to boost government subsidies for his industry: community mental health centers. He visited with U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in Washington to drum up support. He, his girlfriend and other members of his lobbying organization threw a fundraiser for another Miami congressman, Rep. Kendrick Meek, when he ran for the U.S. Senate.

But Justice Department officials paint a far more sinister portrait of Duran and his girlfriend, Marianella Valera. They say the lobbying work was all a front to help them steal more money from the taxpayer-funded Medicare program.

Now Duran and Valera, who each pleaded guilty this year to Medicare fraud charges of running the biggest mental-health racket in the nation, face the prospect of spending the rest of their lives in prison for orchestrating the $205 million scam.

First Miami defendant in nation’s biggest mental healthcare fraud case pleads guilty

The first Miami defendant in the nation’s largest mental healthcare fraud case pleaded guilty to paying millions of dollars in kickbacks in exchange for Medicare patients who didn’t need the costly therapy.Her job as marketing director for a Miami-based mental healthcare chain was to bring in the patients and nobody did their job better than Margarita Acevedo. Investigators say she paid millions of dollars in kickbacks to South Florida assisted-living facilities, halfway houses and recruiters to supply thousands of Medicare beneficiaries to American Therapeutic Corp.’s chain of seven clinics — patients who didn’t need the costly treatment.

On Thursday, Acevedo, 41, of Southwest Miami-Dade, pleaded guilty to conspiring to pay kickbacks in exchange for patients and conspiring to bilk between $100 million and $200 million from Medicare, in the largest mental healthcare fraud case in the country. Her change of plea in a Miami federal court makes Acevedo the first defendant among 24 indicted since last fall to admit playing a role in American Therapeutic’s “massive fraud scheme” against the taxpayer-funded healthcare program for seniors and the disabled, according to court records. She faces between 12 and 15 years in prison at her mid-July sentencing, according to sentencing guidelines.

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/04/08/2158019/first-miami-defendant-in-nations.html#ixzz1JWM85A6L

Mental health clinics targeted in Medicare fraud crackdown

Even by Miami-Dade’s reputation for Medicare fraud, the indictment was a shocker: American Therapeutic’s patients could not feed themselves or control their own bodily waste. Many lacked the mental capacity to respond to counseling; instead they simply stared at walls or watched TV. An employee complained that those patients should be ineligible for Medicare since they could not benefit from treatment.She got fired. That launched whistle-blower and criminal investigations that led to the Justice Department’s takedown Thursday of Miami-based American Therapeutic Corp., the nation’s largest chain of mental health clinics.