Medicaid-fraud arrests have Miami-Orlando link

[Judi Lynn]

Medicaid-fraud arrests have Miami-Orlando link

By Pamela J. Johnson | Sentinel Staff Writer
Posted November 1, 2003

State officials have arrested five Miami residents who operated a dental clinic in Orlando, accusing them of receiving more than $715,000 in a Medicaid scam involving poor children throughout Central Florida, state Attorney General Charlie Crist announced Friday.

Arrested were John Anthony Rubio, 31; Sonia Bonilla Guzman, 43; her sister Anamaria Bonilla Mendez, 38; Gustavo Adolfo Fernandez, 35; and his wife, Iliana Martin-Fernandez, 34.

After a two-year investigation, officers of the Attorney General's Medicaid Fraud Control Unit made the arrests Thursday in Miami.

Officials say dentists Guzman and Mendez maintained practices in Miami but would travel to Orlando on weekends to run a clinic at 1723 S. Rio Grande Ave. They say Rubio and Fernandez traveled in a van to public housing areas in Central Florida soliciting Medicaid-eligible children with offers of free food.

The children, some as young as 2, were then taken to the Orlando clinic in the van, according to Crist. The children's teeth were X-rayed by Rubio or Fernandez, neither of whom is licensed to operate dental X-ray equipment, Crist said.

"It's especially troubling that they would use Florida's neediest citizens as pawns in their scam," Crist said. (snip/...)

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/orange/orl-locdentalscam01110103nov01,0,4192154.story

Is this the Miami version of "Taking it to the Streets?"

[Judi Lynn]

1. A noble effort in Miami, their home town to keep it very low key

according to this Miami Herald article:

Posted on Sat, Nov. 01, 2003

HEALTHCARE
5 are charged in fraud scheme
BY TRENTON DANIEL
[e-mail]

Five Miami people face charges in a Medicaid fraud scheme involving an Orlando dental clinic.

According to the Florida attorney general, the defendants operated a weekend clinic where they performed routine dental services, but billed Medicaid for more extensive and expensive work. They received $715,000 from Medicaid over 14 months.

Two of the defendants drove around public housing projects, soliciting children as patients with promises of free food, the attorney general's office said. Often the children's teeth were x-rayed by people unlicensed to do x-rays, according to an affidavit filed in the case. (snip/...)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/local/7154857.htm

After too many death threats, bomb threats to former Herald publisher David Lawrence, the Miami Herald hired its own Cuban "exile" publisher, and apparently lives day to day to serve the "exile" community to its very best ability. This does mean the news from the Herald may not resemble news from other towns.

[UTUSN]

2. Oh. Thought It Was About Jeb Crow Shrub

But he was skimming from MediCARE, no?

[Judi Lynn]

3. It was his friend, Cuban "exile" Miguel Recarey

It was believed to be the largest Medicare Fraud in history at the time. I see if I can't run down a link really fast.

On edit:

Here's one:

The president's younger brother was also on the payroll in the 80s of the prominent Cuban exile Miguel Recarey, who had earlier assisted the CIA in attempts to assassinate President Castro.

Recarey, who ran International Medical Centers (IMC), employed Jeb Bush as a real estate consultant and paid him a $75,000 fee for finding the company a new location, although the move never took place, which raised questions at the time. Jeb Bush did, however, lobby the Reagan/Bush administration vigorously and successfully on behalf of Recarey and IMC. "I want to be very wealthy," Jeb Bush told the Miami News when questioned during that period.

In 1985, Jeb Bush acted as a conduit on behalf of supporters of the Nicaraguan contras with his father, then the vice-president, and helped arrange for IMC to provide free medical treatment for the contras.

Recarey was later charged with massive medicare fraud but fled the US before his trial and is now a fugitive.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3335.htm

I believe he's in Venezuela now. I think he has also been in Spain.

On edit:

More:

Jeb And miguel recarey and international medical centers (imc). Imc "crawled With former spooks." jeb lobbied hhs for a special exemption from hhs rules For imc. Recarey's brother, jorge, also had ties to cia. Recarey defrauding Medicare. Recarey using former spooks to wiretap imc employees. After Convicted, recarey resigned from imc and replaced by john ward. Recarey Skipped country.
(snip/...)
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/43b/061.html

On edit:

More:

Basulto and Felix Rodriguez together appear to have been part of a plan for treating wounded Contras in Miami, worked out under the direction of Oliver North. A note in North's diary reads "22-Jan-85 Medical Support System for wounded FDN in Miami -- HMO in Miami as oked to help all WIA ... Felix Rodriguez." This HMO was International Medical Centers (IMC), whose head (Cuban-American Miguel Recarey) fled the U.S. after being indicted in what Mother Jones called "the largest HMO Medicare fraud in U.S. history." (snip/...)
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/43b/053.html

On edit:

Longer article, from
Bush Family Value$
The Bush clan's family business

by Stephen Pizzo
September/October 1992:

Jeb and Miguel Recarey
With Miami awash in empty office space in 1986, it was no small event when bagged International Medical Centers as a key tenant for Padreda's HUD-financed building. IMC, which leased nearly all the space in Padreda's vacant building, was at the time one of the nation's fastest-growing health-maintenance organizations (HMO) and had become the largest recipient of federal Medicare funds.

IMC was run by Cuban-American Miguel Recarey, a character with a host of idiosyncrasies. He carried a 9-mm Heckler & Koch semiautomatic pistol under his suit coat and kept a small arsenal of AR-15 and Uzi assault rifles at his Miami estate, where his bedroom was protected by bullet-proof windows and a steel door. It apparently wasn't his enemies Recarey feared so much as his friends. He had a long-standing relationship with Miami Mafia godfather Santo Trafficante, Jr., and had participated in the illfated, CIA-inspired mob assassination plot against Fidel Castro in the early 1960s. (Associates of Recarey add that Trafficante was the money behind Recarey's business ventures.)

Recarey's brother, Jorge, also had ties to the CIA. So it was no surprise that IMC crawled with former spooks. Employee résumés were studded with references to the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the Cuban Intelligence agency; there was even a fellow who claimed to have been a KGB agent, An agent with the U.S. Office of Labor Racketeering in Miami would later describe IMC as a company in which "a criminal enterprise interfaced with intelligence operations." (snip)

~~ more ~~

[UTUSN]

4. So Jeb's Partner Fugitives Self & Jeb Becomes Governor.

Typical. And thanks for the massive links and effort.