Pharmed founders charged with fraud [View All]

Source: Miami Herald

Posted on Tue, Jul. 22, 2008
Pharmed founders charged with fraud
By JOHN DORSCHNER



Carlos and Jorge de Céspedes, founders of Pharmed, once one of the largest Hispanic owned businesses in the country, were charged Tuesday with healthcare-related wire fraud and income tax evasion in federal court.
They face up to 25 years in prison.

Federal prosecutors filed the charges in an information, which is usually an indication that the defendants are willing to cooperate and plead guilty, but the U.S. attorney's office refused to say whether that applied in this case.

~snip~
The brothers were not immediately available for comment, but earlier this year, they vehemently denied the allegations of an HCA hospital chain attorney that the kickback ''scheme'' went ''all the way to the top'' of the Pharmed organization, according to a court transcript.

~snip~
Sons of a Havana dental surgeon, Carlos was 11 and Jorge 8 when they arrived in Miami in 1961 as part of the Pedro Pan exodus, in which 14,000 children were sent out of Cuba by parents who feared the Communist government was about to send the children to camps for indoctrination.



Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/breaking-news/v-print/story/613611.html