Pasco County Marketing Firm Owners Plead Guilty To Kickback Scheme

Over on Florida’s west coast sits Pasco County.
Comprised of approximately a half million people, the county is named for
Samuel Pasco. It’s considered a bedroom community known for its many parks and
trails along rivers, lakes and the Gulf of Mexico as well as being a great
place to go fishing. This week, however, Pasco County became known for something
else.

Two marketing firm owners from the area have pleaded guilty to a health care kickback scheme.

40 year-old Frank Monte and 52 year-old Kimberley
Anderson entered their guilty plea on Tuesday for their roles in a conspiracy
to pay health care kickbacks. They each face up to five years in prison and must
each forfeit $1,717,925.50 in assets.

As reported by the Middle District of Florida branch of the United States Department of Justice, Monte and Anderson owned the marketing company, Centurion Compounding, Inc. which entered into a marketing agreement with the owners of a Pinellas County-based pharmacy called Lifecare. Centurion employed sales representatives to market creams for pain and scars, among others, to beneficiaries of healthcare plans such as TRICARE.

These creams generally cost between $900 and $21,000 for a one-month supply.

“Between June and November 2014, Monte, Anderson,
the owners of LifeCare pharmacy (Carlos Mazariegos and Benjamin Nundy), and a
Pinellas-based physician (Dr. Anthony Baldizzi), agreed that, in exchange for
paying kickbacks to Baldizzi equal to 10% of the after-cost amount of each
claim paid by TRICARE or other health care benefit programs, Baldizzi would
write prescriptions for compounded medications filled by LifeCare for
Centurion-recruited patients,” reports the DoJ.

Mazariegos acted on behalf of the conspirators and offered
Baldizzi such kickbacks as cash payments and even a new BMW M3. In return,
Baldizzi would write prescriptions for compounded creams which the conspirators
would submit claims for to TRICARE. This resulted in TRICARE paying LifeCare over
$4.4 million – a profit of about $4 million for the company. Most claims were
for patients recruited by Centurion.

The profits were split three ways.

The profits were split as follows: 45 percent to LifeCare,
45 percent to Centurion and 10 percent to Baldizzi. With their share of the
profits, Monte and Anderson were able to purchase both property and luxury
cars. Among their seized items were a 2009 Bentley Continental; a 2012
Lamborghini Aventador; a 2012 Itasca motorhome, a 2011 Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG; a
2014 Maserati; a 2005 Ford GT and a 2012 Fisker Karma just to name a few.

In previous cases, Carlos Mazariegos and Benjamin
Nundy pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit health care fraud and Anthony
Baldizzi pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud and receiving
healthcare kickbacks. They are all scheduled to be sentenced in November and
December of this year.

“The guilty pleas of Monte and Anderson conclude a
multi-agency investigation that lasted more than five years, resulting in the
successful prosecution of 10 defendants,” notes the DoJ report, “As a result of
this investigation, TRICARE claims totaling more than $58 million have been
repaid or reversed, and an additional $6 million has been repaid to TRICARE by
the conspirators.”

Are you an attorney who is currently trying a health care fraud case?

Please don’t hesitate to contact Allegiant Experts to find out how our clinical expertise may help your case. Give us a call at 407-217-5831 or email us at info@allegiantexperts.com.

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