April 11, 2008

Miami Woman Sentenced to 10-years for Role in $170M Healthcare Fraud Consiracy

540236_secret_garden.jpgOn April 2, the same day that seven co-defendants were indicted (click here) for their roles in an $11 million Medicare fraud scheme involving HIV infusion clinics, Rita Campos Ramirez who had pleaded guilty in August 2007 to a $170 million conspiracy to commit health care fraud was sentenced to 10 years in prison. According to the U.S. Department of Justice and local federal prosecutors, the scheme represents the largest known individual case of Medicare fraud in the history of the program.

Continue reading "Miami Woman Sentenced to 10-years for Role in $170M Healthcare Fraud Consiracy" »

January 28, 2008

Prof. Benson Weintraub to Present "Defense of a Criminal Healthcare Fraud Case" at Health Care Compliance Association's 12th Annual Compliance Institute

Professor Benson Weintraub, Esquire, a Ft. Lauderdale-based global health care attorney and counselor with an international practice and clientele, and a distinguished academic authority on the Federal sentencing of corporations and individuals, has been invited to present "Defense of a Criminal Healthcare Fraud Case" at Health Care Compliance Association's (HCCA) 12th Annual Compliance Institute to be held in New Orleans April 13-16, 2008.

Weintraub has served as a full-time Professor of Law. During his legal career, Porf. Weintraub has successfully represented complex white collar targets, corporations, business entities, executives, defendants, and witnesses as a tenacious, exclusively federal white collar criminal defense lawyer for more than 25 years.

Among his credits has defended more than 60 Physicians, Health Care Delivery Corporations & Organizations, DME Distributors, Internet Pharmacies, Pharmacists, Pharmaceutical Manufacturers, and public officials on hospital regulatory boards throughout the nation.

He also represented David Paul in the failed CenTrust Bank case as well as reputed drug lords, Willie Falcon and Salvador Magluta.

Weintraub recently represented Arne Soreide, a high profile telecom executive convicted after trial (by other counsel) in Fort Lauderdale of a $22m fraud, successfully convincing the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Atlanta that his 25 year sentence of imprisonment must be reversed, which the appellate court conceded was improper.

Weintraub was appointed by the first Chairman of the US Sentencing Commission to assist the fledgling agency in drafting its initial sentencing guidelines for organizations and individuals.

His extensive academic writing has been widely published or cited in Yale L.J., Harvard Law Review, Federal Sentencing Reporter, Stanford Journal of Law & Policy, Notre Dame Law Review, Federal Probation (US Courts), etc., and health care blogs.

Florida Board Certified Criminal Trial Lawyer Robert David Malove is Of Counsel to Benson Weintraub, LLC, upon whom a Masters Degree in Forensic Science, was conferred on Malove by the distinguished George Washington University in Washington DC. Malove received his JD from Pepperdine University School of Law. He has completed the Graduate Certificate Program in Healthcare Corporate Compliance at George Washington University and is Certified in Healthcare Compliance (CHC) by the Compliance Certification Board of HCCA. For more information visit www.healthcarefraudblog.com.

July 12, 2007

Political Commutations: Scooter Libby, Jimmy Hoffa & Sentencing Disparity

By
Benson Weintraub [Benson Weintraub is a sentencing lawyer is Of-Counsel to the Law Offices of Robert David Malove, P.A.,in Fort Lauderdale and former Visiting Professor of Law at Hofstra University. While in law school, he worked on the Hoffa litigation under the direction of civil rights lawyer, Leonard Boudin.]

The political implications of Lewis Libby’s commutation of sentence by President Bush continue to reverberate, but this case summons lewis-libby.jpg memories of the suspicious circumstances hoffa.jpg under which President Nixon commuted the sentence of former Teamsters President, James R. Hoffa, 1971.

Hoffa and Libby were both convicted of obstruction of justice, but Hoffa had already served part of his thirteen-year sentence. That was enough to encourage exposure of the links between organized crime, the old International Brotherhood of Teamsters [IBT], and the intersection of such ties with money and politics.

Similarly, Bush and Cheney also appeared to fear that Libby’s imminent incarceration would lead him to cooperate with the Special Prosecutor, perhaps engendering a political scandal making Watergate look like a misdemeanor.

Continue reading "Political Commutations: Scooter Libby, Jimmy Hoffa & Sentencing Disparity" »