McAllen ambulance company owner headed to prison for fraud over $600K

McALLEN — The owner of a McAllen ambulance company pleaded guilty Tuesday to forging documents and submitting more than $600,000 in false claims to federal and state health care programs.

Frank Gonzalez, 32, appeared before U.S. District Judge Ricardo Hinojosa, who accepted his plea for charges of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and aggravated identity theft, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas.

Gonzalez is the owner of River Valley Transport, also known as Med-Alert EMS. He was charged in October 2013 after investigators discovered that he was responsible for the submission of $601,000 in fraudulent claims to Medicare and Texas Medicaid, in which he was paid almost $318,000, prosecutors say.

As part of his plea, Gonzalez admitted to the fake bills for transporting patients to and from dialysis clinics on dates when the beneficiaries did not receive treatments or even go to the clinics.

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