LAWFUEL -The Legal Newswire – R. Alexander Acosta, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Alice S. Fisher, Assistant Attorney General, United States Department of Justice, Criminal Division, Melody Jackson, Special Agent in Charge, Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General, Miami Field Office, and Jonathan I. Solomon, Special Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Miami Field Office, announced today the filing of an Indictment in connection with their investigation of a massive kickback network involving local pharmacies, durable medical equipment (DME) companies and physicians.
The charges involve defendant Juan Carlos Castaneda, who owned and operated International Surgical-Med Pharmaceuticals Corporation (“International”), a Miami pharmacy. Castaneda was charged by Indictment with one count of conspiring to violate the Medicare Anti-Kickback Statute and two counts of paying illegal kickbacks. The government alleges that between December 2000 and January 2004, Castaneda paid illegal kickbacks to numerous DME company owners in return for their referral of patients to International.
According to the charges, Castaneda had International employees deliver respiratory medications to the referred patients on a monthly basis and then bill Medicare for the cost of such medications. After receiving his monthly payment from Medicare, Castaneda would kickback approximately fifty percent of the payment to the DME company owners as a referral fee. During the course of the conspiracy, Castaneda paid over a million dollars in kickbacks. In order to obtain the cash needed to pay the kickbacks, Castaneda utilized relatives to cash checks from accounts of Medicare funds and return the cash to him.
Mr. Acosta and Ms. Fisher commended the Department of Health and Human Services and the Federal Bureau of Investigation for their investigation of this matter. The case is being prosecuted by Deputy Chief Kirk Ogrosky from the Fraud Section of the Criminal Division in Washington, D.C.
A copy of this press release may be found on the website of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida at www.usdoj.gov/usao/fls . Related court documents and information may be found on the website of the District Court for the Southern District of Florida at www.flsd.uscourts.gov or on .
