A Miami HIV/AIDS clinic owner was convicted Tuesday of running a $5.8 million health care fraud scheme, involving his 76-year-old aunt as one of several fake "patients" in need of care.
David Marrero, 49, was found guilty of using his business, Tendercare Medical Center Inc., to defraud Medicare in a scheme run between January 2005 and December 2007.
Marrero, who started the company with his former wife in 2004, was also convicted on money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering charges.
According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, Marrero began billing Medicare for injection and infusion medications that were supposed to be treating HIV and AIDS related blood disorders.
After he recruited Medicare beneficiaries to his business, he submitted claims for treatments the patients didn't need, raking in $2.7 million for submitting $5.8 million in the claims.
In perhaps the most dastardly part of the scam, Marrero recruited his elderly aunt to pose as an HIV-positive patient with multiple blood disorders.
In that case, Tendercare submitted claims for an excessive amount of medication on the 76-year-old's first visit, as much as 100 units or about one liter of meds, which would have been medically impossible to inject into someone.
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Medicare was billed over $10,000 for that visit, even though it was proved at trial that the aunt wasn't HIV positive and had no blood disorders.
During the trial, a Tendercare employee testified that Marrero had trained her on how to manipulate blood tests to make them come out HIV positive.
Marrero is facing 10 years in prison for each guilty count and fines of as much as twice the $2.7 million he scammed.
