Ex-fugitive gets prison in Dearborn Medicare fraud - Now, how 'bout the Fla Governor?

Nine mil is but a tiny fraction of what HCA did.


Ex-fugitive gets prison in Dearborn Medicare fraud
3:35 PM, Jun. 8, 2011
BY PATRICIA ANSTETT
DETROIT FREE PRESS MEDICAL WRITER


One-time federal most-wanted fugitive Raymond Betancourt was sentenced to 77 months in prison Tuesday for Medicare fraud and money-laundering involving his work at a Dearborn infusion therapy clinic.

Betancourt, 52, was caught in November in the Dominican Republic on charges that he submitted more than $9 million in false claims to Medicare over a two-year period, according to the Motor City Medicare Fraud Strike Force, a multi-agency federal project in Detroit working to reduce fraud in the nation’s Medicare program.

Betancourt was an associate of Clara and Caridad Guilarte, two other most-wanted fugitives who were recently arrested in South America. They are being held at a Miami prison and await trial for charges that they bilked Medicare out of $9.1 million at their Dearborn Medical and Rehabilitation Center, where Betancourt also worked.

The drug infusion clinic, which catered to people with AIDS and HIV, hepatitis C and other chronic conditions, paid cash kickbacks to recruiters and patients in exchange for their Medicare information that they used to falsely bill the program.

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