Mr. Huarte, the lead defendant, was sentenced to 22 years’ incarceration while Alyd Dazza was sentenced to 179 months imprisonment, Ricco Dazza was sentenced to 115 months imprisonment, Ms. Blacio was sentenced to 78 months imprisonment, Mr. Porrata was sentenced to 84 months imprisonment, and Mr. Proenza was sentenced to 17 months imprisonment, for their respective roles in two fraud schemes, according to the release.
In the first conspiracy, Mr. Huarte and other conspirators allegedly submitted $50.2 million in false and fraudulent claims to Medicare for infusion and injection therapy, among other expensive medical treatments at six medical clinics operated and controlled by the defendants. The treatments were designed for Medicare beneficiaries suffering from a wide variety of ailments including cancer, HIV, AIDS, chronic pain and varicose veins. Mr. Huarte and his conspirators were paid at least $19.2 million from the claims, according to the release.
To conceal their involvement in the scheme, Mr. Huarte and his conspirators recruited nominee or “straw” owners for each company and paid them large sums of cash to sign the corporate records, bank records and other business documents, according to the release.
Mr. Huarte was also involved in a second Medicare fraud conspiracy along with co-defendants Alyd Dazza, Ricco Dazza, Ms. Blacio and Mr. Porrata, which involved the opening of 29 medical clinics in Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina and South Carolina. Many of the clinics were simply P.O. boxes or empty, abandoned storefronts, according to the release. These sham medical clinics collectively submitted approximately $55.5 million of false and fraudulent claims to various private insurance companies that offered coverage to Medicare beneficiaries through Medicare Advantage programs, which paid approximately $14.6 million to the sham clinics. A substantial portion of the billings were for expensive cancer and HIV medications that are often administered via infusion treatments.
According to court documents, Mr. Proenza stole and sold the identities of 718 Medicare beneficiaries living in at least five states from his employer where he had access to personal identifying data of millions of Medicare beneficiaries. He then sold the identifications to Mr. Porrata, who transferred the identifications to other conspirators, including Mr. Huarte, who used the Medicare beneficiaries’ identifications to submit false and fraudulent claims through the 29 sham clinics, according to the release.
One remaining defendant, Vicente Gonzalez, will be sentenced on Feb. 1, 2010.
Read the DOJ’s news release on the Miami Medicare fraud schemes.
