Health Care Fraud Blog

On April 18, 2007, U. S. District Court Judge Marcia G. Cooke sentenced Marcelo de Jesus Serrano, a laboratory owner, who previously pled guilty in connection with a $2.5 million Medicare billing fraud scheme to a 57-month term of imprisonment for his role in the health care fraud scheme.

Serrano also agreed to forfeit in excess of $2.8 million in cash and stock holdings, along with three Mercedes Benz automobiles and a motorcycle.

The case stemmed from a fraudulent medical laboratory billing scheme that netted Serrano and his co-conspirators more than $2.5 million in Medicare payments from 2003 through 2005. Serrano operated two clinical labs, Biocyte Laboratories, Inc., and Washington Medical Laboratory, Inc., formerly located in Hallandale Beach, Florida. To conceal his ownership interests in the labs, Serrano incorporated the labs with the State of Florida in the names of fake owners, including a deceased nursing home patient. Serrano then submitted in excess of $5 million in claims to the Medicare program for fraudulent clinical laboratory testing.

On April 20, 2007, the U. S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida, together with the Miami Field Office of the FBI, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Inspector General, announced the unsealing of an Indictment charging four (4) individuals in connection with a $3 million health care fraud, money laundering, and obstruction-of-justice scheme.

Charged in the 13-count Indictment are defendants Jorge Mariano Hernandez, Marta Saavedra, Tania Michel, and Jorge German Suasnavas. Hernandez, Saavedra, and Michel are charged in connection with a $3 million Medicare billing fraud scheme involving JT & M Medical Services, Inc., a Miami durable medical equipment (DME) company. Hernandez, Saavedra, and Suasnavas are separately charged with a conspiracy to commit money laundering regarding the proceeds of the fraud.

According to the Indictment, the criminal scheme involved the submission of claims for DME that were was neither ordered by doctors nor delivered to Medicare patients. In addition, the Indictment charges that Hernandez and Saavedra, who are married, conspired to obstruct the grand jury’s investigation of the alleged fraud at JT & M. The Indictment charges the pair with destroying records sought by the grand jury and directing a witness to give false testimony.

If convicted, the defendants face a maximum of ten (10) in prison on the health care fraud charges and up to an additional twenty (20) years behind bars for the money laundering charge. Hernandez and Saavedra also face a five (5) year maximum prison term for the obstruction conspiracy.

On April 20, 2007 New Jersey Attorney General and Criminal Justice Director announced that a Bergen County chiropractor has been sentenced after pleading guilty for his role in a health care insurance fraud.

According to prosecutors, Marc Centrelli, 46, of Sparta, was ordered by Superior Court Judge William C. Meehan in Bergen County to pay $14,805 in fines and restitution, and to serve one year probation. In addition, Centrelli’s chiropractic license was suspended for three years and he must successfully complete an ethics course before resuming practice. The sentence was imposed pursuant to Centrelli’s guilty plea to filing fraudulent health care claims.

At the guilty plea hearing before Judge Meehan, Centrelli, a licensed chiropractor with an office in Fair Lawn, admitted that between April 30, 2003, and Feb. 11, 2004, he recklessly submitted more than $9,725 in insurance claims to the Selective Insurance Company pursuant to the Personal Injury Protection (PIP) portion of automobile insurance policies provided by the several insurance carriers. Centrelli admitted that the insurance claims were submitted for undelivered services. Investigators determined that, for many of the dates on which Centrelli submitted the claims, he was out of the office and not seeing patients.