FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A Broward County man “blatantly lied” to the federal government to “fuel” his “own greed” while trying to steal more than $11.4 million, according to federal prosecutors who announced his conviction on Thursday.
Christian “Chris” Cruz, 45, of Pompano Beach, a nursing assistant, owned and operated Brace Yourself MD LLC, a Fort Lauderdale-based durable medical equipment supplier, according to state and federal records.
Cruz “devised a scheme to enrich himself by defrauding Medicare,” FBI Miami Assistant Special Agent in Charge Chris Caldwell said in a statement.
Cruz and Jorge Luis Almansa -- a convicted felon who is on the run -- paid kickbacks and bribes to get signed doctors’ orders, and send thousands of orthotic braces to Medicare beneficiaries who didn’t need them, according to federal investigators and prosecutors.
Cruz and Almansa paid “marketers,” who used telemedicine companies, to get the orders, without the prescribing doctor ever seeing the patient, and in some cases, used “the electronic signature of a beneficiary’s own doctor without that doctor’s permission,” according to prosecutors.
Medicare paid more than $3.7 million of the $11.4 million in fraudulent claims, according to court records. Several public consumer complaints with the Better Business Bureau remained online on Thursday.
“I am filing this complaint on behalf of my mother who received braces that she did not order!! Braces for both wrists and legs were sent to my mother in October ... cannot use since she is confined to a wheelchair,” a user wrote on the BBB’s company profile page.
A federal jury found Cruz guilty of nine charges: One count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and wire fraud, four counts of health care fraud, one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States and to make false statements relating to health care matters, and three counts of structuring.
Cruz’s sentencing is on April 13. Investigators with the Health and Human Services’ Office of the Inspector General also investigated the case.
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