Planner of huge fraud given 9 years

[Judi Lynn]

Posted on Sat, Jan. 10, 2004

CRIMINAL JUSTICE
Planner of huge fraud given 9 years
Prosecutors say a Redland plant-nursery owner who masterminded a mammoth Medicare fraud will be repaying the U.S. government for the rest of his life.
BY LARRY LEBOWITZ
[e-mail]

A Cuban-born nursery owner who was on the verge of becoming an American citizen will instead spend the next nine years behind bars and the rest of his life repaying the U.S. government $36.5 million he grossed from one of the largest-ever Medicare scams.

Alfredo Omar Rodriguez, 38, pleaded guilty to healthcare fraud and conspiracy charges in September.

''I am sorry,'' Rodriguez said. ``I never believed I could have done something like this. I know I will have a new life. I thank this country for receiving me and my family.''

Rodriguez masterminded a mammoth operation, overseeing 18 Miami-Dade County medical supply firms that paid off thousands of elderly clients from Hialeah to Little Havana and Virginia Gardens to Kendall who filed bogus claims about bad knees.
(snip/...)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/7677301.htm

[0rganism]

1. I wonder how much of that money went to the republican party

So it's off to http://www.opensecrets.org/indivs/index.asp for a little research...

Here's a hard money donation to the NRCC that looks like our buddy:

RODRIGUEZ, OMAR A
KISSIMMEE,FL 34741 INFO REQUESTED 11/14/2001 $300 NRCC/Non-Federal 2

Of course the soft money is a bit harder to track
(Medicare fraud moneys -> Nursery PAC -> NRCC soft money, ya know?)

[Judi Lynn]

2. Interesting that there's a connection in South Florida

between Republicans and Medicare fraud more than once!

I have a feeling you already know about Jeb Bush's Cuban "exile" friend, Miguel Recarey, who is currently "on the lam" from a U.S. Medicare fraud BIG TIME problem;

(snip) In 1985, Jeb lobbied the federal government on behalf of Miami HMO owner Miguel Recarey to increase Recarey’s Medicare business ultimately to a total of $1 billion. The following year, Jeb received $75,000 from Recarey. Recarey, who had longstanding business ties to the late Florida Mafia boss Santos Trafficante, subsequently fled the U.S. under indictment, suspected of up to $100 million in Medicare fraud.5 Details (snip/...)

http://www.campaignwatch.org/details.htm

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More:

(snip)The Bush family connections go back to 1984 when Jeb Bush began a close association with Camilo Padreda, a former intelligence officer with the Batista dictatorship overthrown by Fidel Castro.

Jeb Bush was then the chairman of the Dade county Republican party and Padreda its finance chairman. Padreda had earlier been indicted on a $500,000 (£320,000) embezzlement charge along with a fellow exile, Hernandez Cartaya, but the charges were dropped, reportedly after the CIA stated that Cartaya had worked for them.

Padreda later pleaded guilty to defrauding the housing and urban development department of millions of dollars during the 1980s.

The president's younger brother was also on the payroll in the 80s of the prominent Cuban exile Miguel Recarey, who had earlier assisted the CIA in attempts to assassinate President Castro.

Recarey, who ran International Medical Centers (IMC), employed Jeb Bush as a real estate consultant and paid him a $75,000 fee for finding the company a new location, although the move never took place, which raised questions at the time. Jeb Bush did, however, lobby the Reagan/Bush administration vigorously and successfully on behalf of Recarey and IMC. "I want to be very wealthy," Jeb Bush told the Miami News when questioned during that period.

In 1985, Jeb Bush acted as a conduit on behalf of supporters of the Nicaraguan contras with his father, then the vice-president, and helped arrange for IMC to provide free medical treatment for the contras.

Recarey was later charged with massive medicare fraud but fled the US before his trial and is now a fugitive. (snip/...)

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3335.htm

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Thanks for checking Open Secrets on this Republican criminal! :bounce: