Category Archives: General
Florida Doctor with Senatorial Ties Charged with Fraud and Corruption
Florida doctor Salomon Melgen has been indicted on fraud and corruption charges tied to his medical practice and his connections with Senator Robert Menendez (D-New Jersey). Federal prosecutors in the Southern District of Florida recently hit Dr. Melgen with an indictment charging 46 counts of health care fraud associated with his ophthalmology practice. Nineteen… Read More »
$100 Million Surety Bond Scheme
An Orange Park, Florida, man was recently sentenced to almost five years in prison for operating a $100 million surety bond fraud scheme. From August 2012 to July 2013, Eric Campbell created several corporations in order to sell fraudulent surety bonds to various construction projects around the country. The unsuspecting purchasers of these fraudulent… Read More »
Beware of Aggressive Undercover Operations
The New York Times recently did an extensive piece on the drastically expanding use of undercover operations by the federal government – often very aggressive responses for non-violent crimes. Several aspects of these operations should be alarming to the public, as they further undermine confidence in the integrity of law enforcement at a time… Read More »
PIP Fraud Arrests in Miami
Nine arrests were made last month in the Miami area, by agents of the Florida Department of Financial Services’ Division of Insurance Fraud, in separate cases for personal injury protection fraud. The individuals staged automobile accidents and submitted thousands of dollars’ worth of fraudulent bills to various insurance carriers. Personal injury protection (PIP) fraud… Read More »
“He Who Represents Himself In Court” . . . Well, You Know The Rest.
In a bizarre example of the folly of a defendant acting as his own pro se counsel, a Clearwater, Florida, man has asked for the death penalty in his own criminal case, while simultaneously trying to defend against it. Craig Wall, 39, is facing the death penalty in a Pinellas County court for the… Read More »
Medicare Fraud Takes Down Major Florida HMO
Florida state regulators recently took over Florida Healthcare Plus after the insurer found itself in the middle of an FBI Medicare fraud investigation. Florida Healthcare Plus was a $130 million-per-year company with over 200 employees. It had almost 10,000 Medicare beneficiaries as members. While the company itself was not charged with fraud, 11 individuals… Read More »
Medical Marijuana in Florida: So Close…But No Cigar
In the weeks and months ahead of Election Day, Amendment 2 had been polling in the 70-percent range. But when the final tallies came in, the measure that would have legalized medical marijuana in the state of Florida went down to defeat. While receiving 58 percent of the vote, it nonetheless failed to clear… Read More »
Federal Prisoners May Now Be Eligible to Have their Sentences Reduced
When the clock struck midnight on November 1st, thousands of federal prisoners sentenced for drug-related offenses saw a chance to have their prison terms reduced. This was because federal drug sentencing reforms that were adopted earlier this year went into effect on that date. As many as 46,000 prisoners currently incarcerated for narcotics offenses… Read More »
Mortgage Fraud, Magnified (and the Lucie Tondreau fiasco)
In my last post, I spoke in general about what mortgage fraud looks like, and how the economic downturn of the late ‘00s has exposed countless such frauds in Florida and around the nation. Strictly speaking, mortgage fraud can be accomplished by one crooked borrower who provides false information on a loan application (income,… Read More »
Mortgage Fraud in Florida: We’re Number 1 (Unfortunately)!!
Mortgage fraud has been a hot button issue for the federal government ever since the wave of major bank failures that began in 2008. The 16th Annual LexisNexis Mortgage Fraud Report was recently released, finding that as the economy improves and the housing industry rebounds, mortgage fraud (particularly application fraud) continues to be on… Read More »