Florida residents arrested for certain types of white-collar crimes should take the charges against them seriously. It’s important to get help and recognize the differences between bribery and gratuity. What is bribery? Bribery is a white-collar crime that is...
When most people in Florida think of bankruptcy, they imagine someone who has fallen on hard times and is simply trying to do what's best for their family or business. However, some individuals choose to file for bankruptcy fraudulently to avoid paying their debts....
wo defendants involved in a stolen identity and tax refund fraud scheme were sentenced to federal prison terms yesterday in the Southern District of Florida. One defendant was sentenced to 5 years in prison; the other to 2 years in prison. Both defendants are jointly responsible for paying $563,210 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service. The scheme involved using stolen identities to…
Elder fraud has become a priority for federal prosecutors in the Southern District of Florida with the passage of a 2017 federal law combating financial crimes targeting seniors and the implementation of the Elder Justice Initiative by the Department of Justice. Elder Fraud Prosecutions are on the Rise in the Southern District of Florida With a large population of retired…
South Florida is the nation’s capital of mortgage fraud, according to the third quarter 2019 mortgage fraud report by the analytic firm CoreLogic, which found that 241 applications in the metro area of Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach raised red flags to lenders. The New York metro area ranked second nationally, with 208 fraud risk applications, followed by the Los Angeles metro…
South Florida is said to be the leader in federal health care fraud indictments and seizures, and is teaching other districts how to prosecute health care fraud cases. In just the past two weeks, there have been two major health care fraud take downs in South Florida – the first charging 30 individuals with an alleged $86 million fraud scheme and the second charging 35…
A total of 30 defendants have been charged with offenses relating to their alleged participation in various schemes to defraud Medicare, Medicaid and private insurance. Those charged include physicians as well as other medical and business professionals. The charges announced involve schemes alleged to have billed Medicare, Medicaid and private insurance companies for medically unnecessary services, such as home health, prescriptions…
A wealthy Miami Beach health care executive, who owned and operated a network of more than 30 nursing homes and assisted living facilities in South Florida, was sentenced last week to 20 years in prison for orchestrating what prosecutors described a massive $1 billion Medicare fraud scheme. The indictment charged the owner of the facilities, along with a hospital administrator and a physician’s assistant…
Prosecutors charged a South Florida movie producer, his business partner and a former Wells Fargo banker with wire fraud and money laundering over a multimillion-dollar investment scheme. The three men allegedly defrauded investors by promising attractive returns from planned movies, theater shows and other productions. As reported by the Miami Herald, U.S. officials claim they never intended to follow through on their…
Criminal Intent is Hard to Prove There are two essential elements that prosecutors in every criminal case must prove beyond a reasonable doubt: the criminal act (known as the actus reus) and the criminal intent (known as the mens rea). Criminal acts are typically defined by statute and can be proven by direct or circumstantial evidence. But even if criminal acts can…