South Florida Criminal Attorneys Blog

Two Miami Residents Plead Guilty for Receiving Health Care Kickbacks

September 3, 2013 | Michael B. Cohen, P.A.

Crimes relating to the Health Care Industry are one of the most costly issues that American taxpayers are forced to endure. The FBI has estimated that crimes of this nature cost taxpayers an average of $80 billion annually. Statistics show that as little as three percent of this money is recovered and in many cases whistle blowers get paid a substantial amount of the recovered funds for their participation in bringing the offenders of these criminalities to justice.

In an article posted here on August 20, our narrative conveyed a story of a married couple who pleaded guilty to the federal charge of conspiracy to commit health care fraud. Another of the charges that was originally levied against them in the indictment was the payment of kickbacks to patient recruiters in order to direct willing patients to Flores Home Health, the couple’s health care clinic. There, the therapy services offered turned out to be curatively deceitful and in many situations, not delivered in the least, although settlement by Medicare was conveyed for the fabricated and theoretical services rendered.

Elizabeth Monteagudo, 33, and Cristobal Gonzalez, 39, didn’t work for Flores Home Health but their job description of patient recruiters fit the same type of personnel that were paid by Marina Sanchez Pajon and Miguel Jimenez the owners of Flores. Yesterday, the two Miami residents pleaded guilty to receiving kickbacks for their part in a similar federal health care fraud; this scheme in its entirety netting $48 Million.

Throughout the duration of early 2009, concluding roughly in mid-2011, Monteagudo and Gonzalez operated as patient recruiters for Caring Nurse Home Health Care Corp., soliciting and receiving kickbacks and bribes from the owners and operators of the health care company in return for allowing the agency to bill the Medicare program on behalf of the recruited patients. Gonzalez also worked for Good Quality Home Health Care, Inc. in the same capacity. Comparable to the Flores case, these Medicare recipients were subsequently billed for therapy and home health care services that were medically needless or not provided at all, according to documents presented in court.

Additionally, Monteagudo who owned and operated a company named Starlite Home Health Agency Inc. also admitted to her participation with $7 million in fraudulent Medicare billings.

In a separate case that led to these two guilty pleas, the owner/operators of Caring Nurse Home Health Care Corp. and Good Quality Home Health Care, Inc. were sentenced to serve 9 years, and a little over 4 years in prison. On Feb. 27, 2013, Rogelio Rodriguez received the longer sentence while Raymond Aday was given the lesser. These sentences were announced subsequent to their guilty pleas in December 2012. Rodriguez was the owner of the two health care companies and Aday managed both. The two pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud which was charged in an indictment unsealed in October of last year. That indictment charged that between the period of January 2006 and June 2011, each of the two companies submitted claims in the area of $48 million for home health services that weren’t necessary medically, and in many cases not provided at all. In lieu of these falsified claims $33 million of the total amount billed was actually paid by Medicare.

According to the court documents from that case, Rodriguez and Aday colluded with patient recruiters with their ultimate goal being the illegitimate charging of Medicare for unnecessary services rendered. The documents also stated that both defendants paid bribes and kickbacks to the above-mentioned patient recruiters, as well as others.

According to the Department of Justice, nurses and office staff at both health care companies were also implicated for falsifying files of their patients in their attempt to make it seem that the Medicare beneficiaries qualified for services when they in fact did not.

In addition to the term of their incarceration, U.S. District Judge Federico A. Moreno sentenced Aday to pay $2.1 million and Rodriguez to pay $33 million in restitution. They will each also have to pay a fine of $100,000. The two were also penalized to a term of three years of supervised release at the completion of their prison terms.

Both cases were investigated by the FBI and Department of Health & Human Services-Office of the Inspector General, which was conveyed as a measure of the Medicare Fraud Strike Force.

Notorious “Queen of the Pacific” Drug Madam Deported to Mexico

August 27, 2013 | Michael B. Cohen, P.A.

A cocorrido is a type of Spanish folk music which is said to date back to the Mexican Revolution of 1910. These catchy melodic ballads originally told the stories of revolutionary fighters and their heroic acts and escapades. In recent years this genre of music has evolved, and the similar narcocorrido has become a contemporary type of this musical tradition. It uses an accordion-based polka type technique as a rhythmic base. These new corridos, focusing on drug smugglers have added the word “narco” to the original genus which comes from the English word “narcotics”. Some music critics have also compared the very danceable narcocorrido songs to the gangster rap variety.

In a current song by the Spanish band Los Tucanes de Tijuana, it is said that Sandra Avila Beltran, 52 is connected to the lyric “The more beautiful the rose, the sharper the thorns.”

Last week Avila Beltran was deported back to Mexico after last month’s sentencing in Miami. She was among 129 individuals detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) which is the primary investigative division of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. She and the others were flown to Benito Juarez International Airport in Mexico City and handed over to authorities.

Avila Beltran, dubbed “Queen of the Pacific” (La Reina del Pacífico) by the mass media was first detained and arrested in September, 2007. She was charged with conspiracy to traffic drugs as well as other organized crime charges. Although some of the charges were hastily dropped she remained in custody for money laundering, and possession of illegal weapons. She was extradited to the U.S. in August, 2012 to face criminal charges brought about by the U.S. government. At the time of her arrest the Mexican government and U.S. officials considered her a significant link to the Sinaloa Mexican drug cartel as well as the Colombian Norte del Valle Cartel.

Avila Beltran is no stranger to the illegal drug trafficking business. A family member, Rafael Caro Quintero was at one time the leader of the Guadalajara Cartel. Other family members have played a crucial part in her illicit career. Police in Mexico point out that she’s the niece of Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, who was at one time known as the godfather of the entire Mexican drug business. Gallardo is currently serving the balance of a forty-year sentence for the murder of U.S. DEA special agent Enrique Camarena in 1984. Additionally, her great uncle Juan Jose Quintero Payan was previously extradited to the United States for drug trafficking charges. Similarly her mother’s side of the family became involved in heroin trafficking in the 1970s and later expanded their operations to include the marketing of cocaine. DEA agents have stated that Avila Beltran never moved away from engaging in the viciousness that comes with the territory and that “she used the typical intimidation tactics of Mexican organizations.”, and in effect was a “third-generation” drug trafficker.

She had love affairs with more than a few recognized drug lords in her younger days. She twice married; both times to ex-police superiors who switched their careers by becoming drug traffickers. Both of her husbands were killed by hired assassins at a later time. Officials consider her rise to prominence in the drug trafficking trade largely to her most recent bond with Juan Diego Espinoza Ramirez, who goes by the name of “The Tiger.” Ramirez is known to be a significant member of the Colombian Norte del Valle cartel. Avila Beltran lived in Guadalajara, Jalisco, and Hermosillo, Sonora, until in excess of nine tons of cocaine was discovered by police in 2001 on a ship in Manzanillo, Colima in the Pacific port of Mexico. The authorities, through their investigation, were able to track the cargo to both her and Ramirez. She had dodged authorities for years, until they tied her to this shipment.

The spotlight inadvertently fell on Ms. Beltran when it was she that alerted authorities, asking for their assistance, when her then teenage son was kidnapped and held for a $5 million ransom in 2002. Her son was eventually returned but the case raised suspicions into her activities. These suspicions and inconsistencies finally propelled an investigation into her way of life. More than four years after her son’s return the investigation that was carried out by more than 30 federal agents finally yielded enough evidence to lead to her arrest.

This April, in Miami federal court Avila Beltran pleaded guilty to the charge of being an accessory after the fact to the charge of drug trafficking. She was sentenced to just less than six years in prison. However, she was let go almost immediately; being credited for time she had already served in Mexico. She had been in custody in that country since 2007.

In Mexico, she was charged with conspiracy to traffic drugs, and charges of organized crime. She was acquitted of those charges in 2010 by a Mexican judge, but was extradited in 2012 and sent back to South Florida to face new charges of conspiring to smuggle large amounts of cocaine into the U.S more than 10 years ago.

Avila was released on July 30 from a Miami federal prison and handed over to ICE. She was deported from Miami back to Mexico last week.

In a news release, Field office director of ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations Adrian P. Macias stated that “The deportation of this convicted aggravated felon, as thousands of others, is the result of the robust working relationship ICE has with the government of Mexico”

South Florida Husband & Wife Plead Guilty to Health Care Fraud Conspiracy

August 20, 2013 | Michael B. Cohen, P.A.

The family business was thriving. Between late 2009 and mid 2012 Flores Home Health, a Miami based health care agency billed and were paid roughly $8 million for the care and services they provided to their patients.

Marina Sanchez Pajon, 29 and Miguel Jimenez, 43, a married couple from Dade County found success in the health care industry. They put together a top-notch sales force of patient recruiters. They also had excellent “contacts” in doctors’ offices and clinics that were paid very well for providing clientele for the couple’s enterprise.

Jimenez controlled and managed the company’s everyday activities and oversaw all aspects of its operation. His wife Maria was responsible for supervising the “employees”, and taking care of the mountain of paperwork that is customary in this type of enterprise.

Regrettably, the patient recruiters of Flores Home Health were not compensated with a typical salary structure. They were given kickbacks and bribes to steer patients to the married couple’s clinic. Once the patients were attained they would receive home health and therapy services that were therapeutically pointless and in some cases, not provided at all. Their doctors’ office “contacts” were also retained by the inducements of bribes and payoffs that would provide the couple’s firm with medical certifications, therapy prescriptions, and various other required documents. These forms and documents made it possible for them to bill their “chief purchaser” for physical and occupational therapy provided to their patients. The firm’s “chief purchaser” was Medicare.

Flores Home Health is no longer operating and the said “employees” and “contacts” are now branded as coconspirators. On May 14, 2013 Pajon and Jimenez were indicted. The indictment charged them with the crimes of conspiracy to receive and pay health care kickbacks, conspiracy to commit health care fraud, and substantive kickback charges. At the time, The Asset Forfeiture Section of the Department of Justice that prosecutes criminal and civil asset forfeiture matters, dealing with an extensive assortment of federal offenses had acquired seizure warrants and restraining orders on five vehicles and bank accounts holding $160,000. The HHS-OIG has also filed “*lis pendens” (Latin for “suit pending” see footnote) against four real properties that were acquired with profits derived from the scheme.

The indictment was brought as the result of sweeping arrests by the Medicare Fraud Strike Force which was responsible for the takedown of 24 individuals from the South Florida area in March. 89 Individuals in total were rounded up nationally for the submission of over $45 million in fabricated billings to Medicare.

On August 13, in Miami, the couple each pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud before U.S. District Judge Ursula Ungaro in the Southern District of Florida. Sentencing is scheduled for Oct. 30. The pair is each facing a sentence of 10 years in prison as a maximum penalty.

The case was investigated by the FBI as well as the Office of Inspector General’s U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as a part of the Medicare Fraud Strike Force, under the supervision of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida. The case was just one of many where indictments were unsealed regarding investigations conducted by the M.F.S.F. The strike force is currently functioning in nine cities across the country. Since its inception it has indicted more than 1,500 defendants that have fraudulently billed Medicare more than $5 billion.

In the words of U.S. Attorney Wifredo Ferrer, “Health care fraud continues to be a drain on scarce Medicare dollars, as unscrupulous individuals insist on using the Medicare Trust Fund as their private ATMs. We are undaunted and remain committed in our resolve to help preserve and protect Medicare for those who need it, the sick, the elderly and the poor.”

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder also commented in reference to the work done by the Strike Force “Today’s announcement marks the latest step forward in our comprehensive efforts to combat fraud and abuse in our health-care systems…” they are “protecting the American people from all forms of health-care fraud, safeguarding taxpayer resources and ensuring the integrity of essential health-care programs.” Mr. Ferrer commended the investigative efforts of the multiple agencies involved as well as the FBI.

*As it now stands, a lis pendens is a printed announcement stating that a lawsuit has been filed in regard to real estate, which involves either the title to the property or a claimed proprietorship concern in it. A lis pendens that is recorded against a complete entity or a section of property signals a potential buyer or financier that the property’s title is presently in question.

Three Sentenced in 2011 New Year’s Eve Hate Crime under the Shepard Act

August 15, 2013 | Michael B. Cohen, P.A.

The Matthew Shepard Act, in full named the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act is an action of Congress that was passed in Oct. 2009 by a bipartisan Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama. The law boosts the 1969 federal hate-crime law concerning bias-motivated crimes, or race hate that includes but is not limited to include crimes motivated by a victim’s gender identity, actual or perceived gender, disability, or sexual orientation.

Three men from two separately known alleged “hate” groups were sentenced for their roles in a 2011 New Year’s Eve attack in accordance with this law.

On August 7, Michal Gunar, 29, of East Windsor, New Jersey, was sentenced to 33 months in prison. His codefendant, Kyle Powell, 24, of West Collingswood, New Jersey, was sentenced to 15 months behind bars.

Both men were known members of the Aryan Terror Brigade (ATB) and were arrested in December 2012 along with Christopher Ising, 31, of Waretown, who was a disciple of another New Jersey-based white supremacist organization known as the Atlantic City “Skinheads”. Gunar and Powell were both sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Joel A. Pisano on August 7 and Ising learned his fate two days later in federal Court in Trenton.

Gunar and Ising had previously pleaded guilty to an indictment charging them with conspiracy to commit a hate crime assault, as well as the actual commission of a hate crime assault. Powell only pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of conspiracy to commit a hate crime assault which resulted in his slighter sentence and the shortened period of incarceration.

Based on the original allegations, the three men along with other like-minded individuals were reveling together at what has been labeled a “meet and greet” occasion for white supremacists that was being held in East Brunswick, NJ at Mr. Ising’s home.

Court reports demonstrated that at the conclusion of the event, the three men and other party goers, propelled by alcohol and white supremacist music drove to a nearby apartment complex located in the neighboring town of Sayreville. They were psyched up and it appeared that their principal objective was to assault random non-Caucasian individuals.

Ising, who had brass knuckles in his possession, and Gunar, flaunting a large knife, hauled one of their victims out of a parked car that was located in the apartment complex’s parking lot, according to the indictment. At that time, a friend of the victim ran to his aid. He too was then attacked.

The first of their targets was beaten in the head and repeatedly punched in the face as Gunar allegedly hollered, “show me your faces you Arab sand niggers,” Ising attacked the second man punching him in the head, using the brass knuckles he brought along specifically for the occasion. Powell was not involved in the actual assault but purportedly stood in close proximity observing; as the assault was carried out. Both victims were of Egyptian descent. Their names have been withheld and have only been referred to as M.H. and R.M.

Following the attack the two thugs returned to Ising’s house where Gunar bragged about the attack on his Facebook page and posted a pair of bloodied pants. Later that week he posted the racial slur, previously mentioned above and wrote “it was me and my other bro on like 6 or eight and we whooped them”

According to Wikipedia a “hate group is an organized group or movement that advocates and practices hatred, hostility, or violence towards members of a race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation or other designated sector of society.”

The FBI labels hate groups whose “primary purpose is to promote animosity, hostility, and malice against persons belonging to a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity/national origin which differs from that of the members of the organization.”

Both the Aryan Terror Brigade and Atlantic City Skinheads are acknowledged as being part of the neo-Nazi Blood and Honor Network, which currently has been making a concerted effort to reconstruct the associates amid street hate groups, using white power concerts, events and rallies as their means.

To view the FBI’s latest press release, regarding the statistics associated with hate crimes click here. The most recent press release concerning this article can be found here.

Three Broward County Men Arrested for Armed Jewelry Store Robbery

August 10, 2013 | Michael B. Cohen, P.A.

Surveillance video showed two men brandishing handguns, their heads covered by ski masks enter Renee’s Golden Touch jewelry store located at 6501 Taft Street in Hollywood this past Saturday, prompting two quick-thinking employees to flee through a back door but not before pressing an alarm that alerted authorities to the robbery in process.

During the heist, two customers were forced to the ground at gunpoint as the criminals’ emptied showcases and trays of items, later found to be valued between ten and twenty thousand dollars.

Erik Mobley a relative of one of the men who was “forced to the ground” at the time of the robbery, armed with his own gun, was outside the store when he noticed the two men exit. He pursued the blue Pontiac that acted as their getaway car, driven by a third man, and followed them on Johnson Street, observing jewelry being thrown out the car windows as he tried to chase them down. As Mobley continued his pursuit, the driver of the car appeared to lose control, and crashed on the 8300 block in Hollywood. After the collision, they again drove away only to again crash the vehicle at the 9400 block in neighboring Pembroke Pines.

With the help of an off-duty Miami Gardens police officer who was fortuitously present at the scene of the second crash, Mobley was able to subdue 27-year-old Mark McPherson, of Plantation, as the two other suspects took off on foot.

Still on the move they tried to break into a locked home near the crash site but were unable to gain access.

As the action continued to play out, a resident in the area noticed that the police activity had moved in proximity of his own backyard. Armed with his own firearm, he released his dogs which immediately started barking at a large box in the backyard which the homeowner used to store cushions. That box became the final hiding place of the two remaining perpetrators.

Noticing two men glancing at him from inside the box, the homeowner pointed his gun at them and then beckoned police to the area where the two suspects were attempting to hide.

The two gunmen identified as Travass Alexander Quinn, 22, of Fort Lauderdale and 17-year-old Malcolm Jones of Fort Lauderdale were arrested at the scene and reunited with McPherson, their third cohort. They were all charged with grand theft of more than $10,000 but less than $20,000 as well as robbery with a firearm. Quinn was additionally charged with attempted burglary of an occupied dwelling for his failed attempt of breaking into the above mentioned property.

Thankfully, nobody was injured and all of the jewelry was recovered from the theft.

Quinn was previously arrested in Kissimmee, Florida in January 2011 when he was only 19 years old. He and an accomplice, Willie Frank Morgan, were taken to the Osceola County Jail on charges of grand theft auto, occupied armed burglary, possession of burglary tools and resisting arrest without violence.

All Court appearances by Quinn for those offenses were either adjudicated “guilty no trial required” or “Nolle Prossed”, which is a Latin legal term that translates to a declaration made to the judge by a prosecutor in a criminal case either before or during trial, indicating that the charges in the case against the defendant(s) is being dropped.

To view the Osceola County Clerk of Courts Docket Entries for the previous charges against Quinn regarding his earlier offenses that have since been disposed click here.

Nyack Man charged with vehicular manslaughter in Hudson River Boating Accident

August 7, 2013 | Michael B. Cohen, P.A.

The nuptials were set for this coming Saturday in Pearl River in the same Church where their wedding service was to be held. But instead of exchanging vows, Brian Bond observed as Lindsey Stewart’s dark colored casket was taken off the altar and placed into a waiting hearse after the ceremony at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church just a few weeks before the two were to be wed.

During the service, the Rev. John Havrilla urged the attendees to pray for the families of “two beautiful young people whose lives were filled with hope and dreams, and that has been snuffed away.”

The Rockland County Sheriff’s Department is still investigating the accident where a 21-foot Stingray speedboat, out for a night of fun, collided with a construction barge that was secured on the Hudson River carrying construction materials for the $3.9 billion project to build a new Tappan Zee Bridge. Bond and Stewart were thrown upon impact and their bodies were found on separate days during the search for the two missing passengers. The barge was one of many that were moored for the project. In addition to carrying his 30-yearl old wife-to-be, the boat was also packed with most of their wedding party.

Stewart’s mother, Carol Stewart Kosik, told a crowd of nearly 200 people that “Next Saturday I was supposed to be sitting there and Lindsey was supposed to be up here,” as she mourned the death of her daughter after the ceremony. The July 26 late-night collision also was responsible for the death of Mark Lennon, who was to be the best man.

One of the friends, 35-year-old Jojo John of Nyack was driving the boat when the collision transpired. Sheriff’s Department Chief William Barbera said that John, of Nyack was charged with vehicular manslaughter and three counts of vehicular assault. The Chief suggested that there was probable cause to believe the driver may have been operating the vessel while under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs and may face further charges. John was also injured and hospitalized along with the three remaining occupants of the boat. He was arraigned in his Nyack Hospital bed.

All of the victims’ families were quick to submit to investigators that the passengers on the boat “had consumed very little alcohol and considered themselves sober.” Stewart’s and Lennon’s families also said in the statement, “Compounding our agony is the rush, by some, to cast blame on or even malign the victims.”

All of the occupants of the boat have stated to police that there were no lights displayed on the barge and no one saw it before the boat crashed into it. The families of the victims publicly requested that any Hudson River boaters who may have been in the area to submit to authorities any information they may have in regard to the barges in that area, describing if they were properly lit. John’s attorney said he was also conducting an independent investigation and asked boaters and witnesses to contact him at tzbarge@gmail.com, a mailbox that was set up for research regarding this case.

The NY State Thruway Authority and the Coast Guard, has maintained that the barge was properly lit. However, additional lighting was added after the crash.

Unfortunately, Mr. John’s previous record may weigh against him.

According to the Rockland County Sheriff’s Department Mr. John has a history of drug arrests and was previously sentenced to community service and probation. He was charged with drug possession in 2009 and drug-related conspiracy in 2010.

But Sheryl Palacio, 35, of Valley Cottage, N.Y., a friend of both John and Brian Bond defended him saying he “would never, ever want to put his friends in danger.” Ms. Palacio assisted in the search effort. She went on to describe John as a “jovial, loving person.”

Pain Clinic Doctors Who Declined Plea Deals Convicted of Lesser Charge

August 6, 2013 | Michael B. Cohen, P.A.

Follow Up: The Prosecution accused the two doctors of being “drug dealers in white coats”. They inferred that the pair abandoned their medical ethics and were reckless, authorizing illegal pill distributors, and persons addicted to drugs the reward of being prescribed hundreds of pills at a time if they were willing to make the journey to the South Florida pain clinic where they worked. In some cases, individuals described as such would travel more than 1,000 miles to arrive where the two doctors and others like them practiced their craft.

The prosecution originally accused the doctors of murder by causing the deaths of patients who overdosed on the pain medications they prescribed in addition to money laundering; with reference to the proceeds of the prescriptions they wrote.

In a previous article posted here on July 26 it was reported that the two doctors each refused to accept plea deals, emphasizing their innocence. As a result of those decisions the penalty of life imprisonment loomed large.

Nonetheless, last week, although the jury acquitted doctors Cynthia Cadet, 43, and Joseph Castronuovo, 74, on the principal charge of murder (causing the deaths of nine patients that died due to Oxycodone overdoses which they prescribed), they were found guilty of the lesser charge of money laundering for their part in the conspiracy which involved a collection of South Florida pain clinics nicknamed “Oxy Alley”.

Cadet, a retired U.S. Air Force major, and Castronuovo worked at the pain clinic dubbed a pill mill by law enforcement authorities, owned and operated by Chris and Jeff George. Both George brothers are currently serving significant periods of incarceration for their previous guilty pleas in the pain clinic controversy.

Previously in this case, 26 other doctors accepted guilty pleas, most of them receiving five-year sentences. Cadet and Castronuovo were the only two hold-outs.

The West Palm Beach federal jury deliberated for 20 hours before reaching their verdict.

On the money laundering charges, the prosecution sought Castronuovo to pay more than $60,000, and Cadet to pay $1.2 million in a forfeiture of their proceeds. But the decision by the jury was for each to pay $10,001 in the monetary segment of their sentence. There was no mention how and why the jury came up with that specific monetary figure.

During the trial, both defense attorneys argued that the two doctors were uninformed of any conspiracy and were only practicing medicine within state standards regarding the prescribing of drugs to their patients. This standard allows a licensed physician to dispense psychoactive chemical opioid pain pills without fear of reprimand.

“There was not a single piece of evidence at this trial that showed she knew of any conspiracy,” argued Cadet’s attorney.

“It’s an inconsistent verdict when you’re saying to the judge, we’re finding her not guilty, yet on the proceeds of the conspiracy, she’s guilty of that.”

Lawyers for the defendants said that the convictions were a “compromise verdict” handed down by a jury that needed to find the doctors guilty of “something” after a trial that lasted eight-weeks. But both defense attorneys said they were pleased by the outcome thus far. They also both asserted they would appeal the money laundering sentences, on the grounds that they were inconsistent with acquittals in the more serious drug charges.
To read our previous article on this topic, click here

The FBI Press Release can be read by clicking here.

Two South Florida Doctors Decline Plea Deals in Pill Mill Connected Murders

July 26, 2013 | Michael B. Cohen, P.A.

Drs. Cynthia Cadet, 42 and Joseph Castronuovo, 72 maintain their innocence. The two doctors who are each charged with 13 offenses related to prescribing drugs while working at the pain clinics that were operated by the now infamous twin brothers, Chris and Jeff George, are willing to face trial and take their chances before a jury.

The two doctors have declined plea deals that were offered and are now looking at possible sentences of life in prison because their prescription-writing of Oxycodone led to nine deaths, federal officials assert.

Since August 2011, eleven other doctors that were indicted in the same arrests have either pleaded guilty to money laundering or mail fraud in federal court. Most of them received five-year sentences.

Cadet is accused of contributing to the deaths of seven patients that she allegedly prescribed drugs to at the George brother clinics located in three Palm Beach County cities as well as several Broward County cities. Castronuovo is linked to two deaths, according to prosecutors.

It was in August 2011 when thirty-two individuals including thirteen doctors were rounded up by the FBI and charged with the illegal distribution of various drugs through the operation of “pill mills” which operated in Broward and Palm Beach County as well as generating sales through the Internet.

At the time, the indictment alleged that Chris and Jeffrey George, operated, managed and financed the following four pain management clinics in Broward and Palm Beach Counties: Executive Pain, American Pain, Hallandale Pain and the East Coast Pain clinics. From 2008 to early 2010, the George’s clinics dispersed in the area of 20 million oxycodone pills and generated more than $40 million of income from the sales of the controlled substance.

In Oct, 2011 Jeff George pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in connection with the death by overdose of one of the clients who frequented his “pill mill” pain clinics. In January 2012 he was sentenced to 15 1/2 years in prison. Three weeks later his brother Chris was given a 17 1/2-year sentence.

It was the testimony of Jeff that implicated all the other defendants associated with the case including arrests of his brother, mother, sister-in-law and a childhood friend. Cadet and Castronuovo were also named in his testimony.

Pleading leniency for his client, Jeff George’s attorney David Roth said to the Court; “In my 43 years of practicing law, I can’t remember any case where a defendant has cooperated knowing that as a result of his cooperation there was a high probability it would lead to the arrests of his mother and his brother. Mr. George, in street language, has come clean.”

U.S. District Judge Kenneth Marra wasn’t feeling Mr. Roth’s intriguing oratory and decided that his client deserved to spend a long time behind bars.

Oxycodone is the number one form of prescription, and sometimes illegally obtained drugs that are attributed to cause death by overdose. Heroin and cocaine combined don’t come close to the amount of overdose deaths caused by Oxycodone. It is categorized as a Schedule II narcotic. These categories have a high probability of initiating drug abuse and addiction. It can be ingested through the nose by sorting, or liquefied and then injected, to achieve an instantaneous high.

South Florida has been distinguished as the pill mill capital of the world according to Florida’s current Attorney General Pam Bondi. Dan Gelber, a former prosecutor and now a member of the Florida Senate, representing the 35th District said that the state (Florida) is the “Sam’s Club of prescription drugs.” Authorities aren’t surprised to find drugs put together and originating from Florida turning up in packages up and down the east coast. Florida has been acknowledged as the illicit prescription drug capital of the country by local, state and federal law enforcement officials, especially for oxycodone and oxycontin.

Vero Beach Man Sentenced in California to 90 Months for Art Theft and Tax Evasion

July 21, 2013 | Michael B. Cohen, P.A.

Two reasons that criminals are eager to steal valuable paintings are because their values can be outrageous and the physical weights of the items are negligible. Transport is also not difficult once a painting is cut from its frame and rolled into a carrier tube.

Matthew Taylor, 45 was a freelance art dealer. Or at least that’s what he claimed to be. He was very persuasive in assuming the part. His knowledge of fine art seemed to be infinite. In addition to being a supposed dealer he also played the role of a customer very well.

Originally from Vero Beach, Florida, Taylor moved to Agoura, California in 2005. It was there that he quickly became a patron of the Los Angeles Fine Art Gallery. Between the years of his arrival in California, up until his arrest, he made frequent trips between the two states.

In September, 2011 a Los Angeles federal grand jury indicted Taylor on seven felony charges linked to art thefts. The indictment also charged that he defrauded an art collector out of millions of dollars by selling him forged paintings.

One of the paintings taken from the Fine Art Gallery in Los Angeles was a Granville Redmond named “Seascape at Twilight” which he sold to another gallery in that city for $85,000. He also stole a painting by Lucien Frank titled “Park Scene, Paris” according to the indictment. He later claimed that the Redmond piece was originally owned by his mother for many years before it came into his possession.

Taylor was seen in Vero Beach, FL with the painting by Frank several years after it went missing, following his sale of the Redmond. It was there that he attempted to sell the painting to an individual, claiming it was painted by a different artist after erasing Frank’s signature from the piece and then substituting it with the other.

According to the indictment he also sold forged artworks to a collector, maintaining that they were authentic, and that they were painted by revered artists. He sold the naïve collector more than 100 paintings, including some that he deceptively claimed were painted by Jackson Pollock, Vincent van Gogh, Claude Monet, and Mark Rothko. He received more than two million dollars from the collector throughout the swindle in 2005 and 2006.

Taylor established methods to evade paying more than $400,000 in federal income taxes that was owed to the IRS from the illicit sales. He also laundered and transported the profits of his fraud across state lines, including more than $100,000 that was acquired through transactions of four forged paintings, during the above-mentioned timeframe.

His manner of disguising the actual origin of the alleged masterpieces was to mark over or otherwise conceal the signatures of the actual artists replacing them with facsimiles of the famed originals. He also placed bogus labels on the paintings which deceitfully characterized that the paintings were at one time parts of prominent collections that were housed at well-known museums such as the Guggenheim Museum and Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

Last August, a jury found Taylor guilty of five separate felonies as follows: possession of stolen property that had crossed state lines, two counts of tax evasion, structuring cash transactions to avoid federal reporting requirements while on pretrial release and, wire fraud.

On July 11, before federal district judge John A. Kronstadt for the Central District of California, Taylor was sentenced to 7 ½ years in federal prison for the crimes relating to the art theft, forgery scheme and tax evasion matters. He was also ordered to pay over 1.2 million in restitution in addition to over $100,000 to two art galleries. He also has to pay the IRS more than $1.1 million for back taxes including interest and penalties. Judge Kronstadt also ordered that after his prison term ended he would have to face a period of supervised release during which time he would be prohibited from working in or owning “any business involving antiques and or art” without the specific consent of a probation officer that would be assigned to him.

The investigation into Taylor was conducted by the IRS-Criminal Investigation Division, the LAPD’s Art Theft Detail which is responsible for the investigation of burglaries and thefts when fine art is the primary object of interest as well as investigating fakes, frauds, and forgeries, as well as the FBI’s Art Crime Team

The latest FBI press release regarding this case can be found by clicking here.

19-Year-Old Florida Man Arrested In Latest Terrorist Conspiracy

July 17, 2013 | Michael B. Cohen, P.A.

Last Thursday, 19-year-old Jacksonville resident Shelton Thomas Bell was indicted on charges of conspiring and attempting to provide material support to terrorists. Bell had previously journeyed to the Middle East where his desire for self-radicalization strengthened.

Similarly, Tamerlan Tsarnaev travelled to the Russian Federation provinces of Chechnya and Dagestan, in transit to the amplification of his radicalization. Tsarnaev was a Kyrgyzstan national.

According to National Public Radio, more than twenty Somali-American youths disappeared from their homes in Minnesota during the past year. It is believed by the FBI that the young men were recruited here in the U.S. then radicalized, and sent to Somalia. The fear is that they’ll eventually return to the United States to carry out attacks planned overseas.

In a Mar. 10 House Homeland Security Committee probe regarding the growing problem of radicalization within American Muslim communities, Melvin Bledsoe spoke about his son Carlos. Bledsoe went on the record, telling committee members of the personality changes his son underwent.

More and more cases of once benign young American Muslims undergoing changes of radical ideologies and planning to carry out terrorist acts in the U.S. have been dominating the current news headlines.

The now deceased Boston Marathon bomber prepared for the April 15 bombing attacks near the finish line of the Boston Marathon with at least some of his training allegedly acquired on foreign soil. His younger brother, Dzhokhar, a naturalized US citizen was greatly influenced by him.

Tamerlan spent more than half of last year interacting with militant individuals and groups which may have included a person labeled “Russia’s Bin Laden,” Dokka Umarov. In the 1990’s until 2011, Umarov led terrorist death squads in Chechnya until the United Nations finally characterized him a terrorist, affiliated with Al Qaeda.

Carlos Bledsoe is charged with murdering an Army private at a recruiting post located in Little Rock, Arkansas. His father testified in front of the House Homeland Security Committee saying that his son let his beloved pet dog go loose and removed pictures of Martin Luther King from the wall in his room. Up until the onset of this metamorphosis, King was his hero. He attributes what he considered strange behavior of his son’s temperament to be the launch of his alteration to a practice of radical Islam. Carlos, who was supposedly attending college in Nashville, TN, had become a follower of a radicalized mosque there, according to his father. “Carlos was captured by people best described as hunters; he was manipulated and lied to.”

According to authorities, Carlos took the new name, Abdulhakim Muhammed and in due course became the shooter in the attack of an Army recruiting post. He was enraged that U.S. troops were killing Muslims in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Bledsoe Sr. said he was testifying to apologize to his son’s victims and to prevent other families from having to go through comparable pain. He pressed Congress to act. “God help us, God help us,” he said. “This is a big elephant in the room, and our society continues not to see it,” he said. “Our children are in danger. Our country must stand up and do something about the problem. Tomorrow it could be your son, your daughter.”
According to authorities, this latest indictment demonstrates how Bell was organizing to fight in a foreign holy war that he and other local Jacksonville youths had trained for while in quest of assistance from well-known overseas terrorists. If convicted, the charge of conspiring and attempting to provide material support to terrorists holds a maximum penalty of 15 years in federal prison for each one of the two charges.

Bell was being detained at the Duval County Jail in Jacksonville on a number of state charges, including two counts of organized fraud, grand theft, and knowingly and intentionally participating in a motor vehicle crash at the time the new indictment was publicized He was originally arrested on January 29.

A Jacksonville-based terrorism task force made up of state, local and federal organizations uncovered the conspiracy, and it may have been the accounts of some members of a local Islamic Center that helped piece it together for the Federal Agency.

Bell roused suspicions at the Islamic Center in Jacksonville last year due to exchanges he was having with other teens who attended the center, including conversations regarding jihad as well as the ongoing civil war in Syria, according to Parvez Ahmed, the board secretary at the Florida Islamic Center.

According to Ahmed, some parents of young members came to the leadership of the Center with worries based on what was told to them by their children. The Center’s attorneys alerted the FBI. Federal agents then visited the Center on several occasions to interview the administrators and other members.

“We felt he was having conversations with younger kids that concerned us … about violence and things like that,” Ahmed said.

Bell is also suspect of using his training to orchestrate a July 4 night “mission” in which he and other youths outfitted in dark clothes, wore gloves and masks, wrapped their footwear in tape and damaged various religious sculptures at the Chapel Hills Memory Gardens cemetery close by to where he lived last year. Designed for a recruiting video, he allegedly recorded the activity at the cemetery which is located on St. Johns Bluff Road North.

Ahmed stated that it was believed that Bell was going through a fascination phase with Islam.

Previous to the incident, in late September Bell who lived just to the west of Jacksonville flew with another juvenile from Jacksonville to New York to Poland to Israel. Upon arrival in Israel they were denied entrance and turned away. The reasons are unclear why the two were not allowed into the Country.

They then resumed their travels arriving in Jordan on Sept. 28 flying via Poland and then through Turkey. At that point the two contacted an unnamed person who supposedly knew of their plan and had the ability to expedite their transport to their final destination of Yemen, according to the indictment. It’s uncertain if either Bell or the juvenile arrived at their endpoint.

In November, Bell returned to Jacksonville. In the indictment the whereabouts of the juvenile was not indicated at the time of Bell’s return.

In an interview by the Times-Union a woman identifying herself as Bell’s mother told the publication that Shelton had converted to Islam and that he also had been abroad, but she didn’t further elaborate. She insisted that although he’s been indicted, it doesn’t make the allegations true. Other than that, she had no further comments.

Overall, the indictment accuses Bell of flying to the Arabian Peninsula and then meeting with members of Ansar Al-Sharia which is a pseudo name for al-Qaida, to commit acts of violence which he termed a “jihad.” The Ansar Al-Sharia terrorist group has taken credit for numerous assaults on Yemeni forces which include a May 2012 suicide bombing during a parade that killed in excess of 100 soldiers.

Bell and one or two other juveniles are also suspected of training with firearms on July 4 and July 10. The latter exercise was recorded to be shown to others as a training video, the indictment showed.

In the Boston case, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev wrote a note which was left in the boat he was hiding in, while he was being hunted by the police. It indicated that the bombings were reprisals for U.S. military action in the Afghanistan and Iraqi wars. He also called the Boston victims “collateral damage” in the same way that Muslims have been the same in the American-directed wars. “When you attack one Muslim, you attack all Muslims,” he said.

He also said that he didn’t grieve for his brother Tamerlan, writing that by that point, Tamerlan was a martyr in paradise, and that he anticipated that he would join him there shortly.

Bell referred to this training as “practicing jihad “, and identified his real target as “not the American people, just the flag and the government”, the indictment said.

To read the latest FBI press release regarding the Bell indictment, click here