United States v. Velazquez

Pursuant to written plea agreements, defendants Yolanda Sosa and Adrian Velazquez pled guilty to conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud. For a five month period in 2011, Defendants met with a "cooperating doctor" and paid the doctor for prescriptions that Defendants could use to fraudulently bill Medicare. Specifically, Defendants provided the cooperating doctor with Medicare beneficiary information and paid the doctor thousands of dollars to write prescriptions for expensive medications that were not actually given to any patients. The doctor never saw or evaluated the patients, and instead wrote the prescriptions for whatever medications Defendants requested. Defendants gave the fraudulent prescriptions to various pharmacies, which submitted false claims to Medicare based on the prescriptions. As a result, Medicare paid the pharmacies approximately $753,430 based on the false claims. The pharmacies paid Defendants over $60,000 for obtaining the fraudulent prescriptions. Defendants appealed two forfeiture orders entered by the district court after it imposed joint-and-several restitution against them, specifically challenging the restitution amount and the forfeiture of two cars. After careful review of the record and the parties' briefs, and with the benefit of oral argument, the Eleventh Circuit found no reversible error and affirmed the district court. View "United States v. Velazquez" on Justia Law