Thaindian News

MIAMI (BNO NEWS) – Two Miami-Dade County HIV-clinic owners on Tuesday were sentenced to federal prison for conspiring to commit health care fraud, prosecutors said.

From Febuary 2006 to December 2006, Lisset Lombera, 42, and Yamilet Cardenas, 40, conspired with Dr. Alberto Gonzalez-Gomez and others to defraud Medicare through the submission of fraudulent claims from an HIV-clinic known as Medley Clinic. Medley Clinic submitted $3,018,400 in fraudulent Medicare claims and was reimbursed $254,469.

In 2006, two cooperating witnesses, posing as recruiters, brought individuals purporting to suffer from HIV-related ailments to the Medley Clinic in exchange for kickbacks from the Clinic. Lombera and Cardenas, who controlled Medley Clinic, instructed the individuals complete paperwork, fraudulently claiming that Medley provided them with expensive HIV-related drugs, when, in fact, in most cases, the drugs were neither provided nor medically necessary.

In July and August 2006, the cooperating witnesses wore hidden devices that recorded conversations with Lombera and Cardenas in which the two admitted being aware of the fraud.

Lombera was sentenced to 30 months imprisonment and three years supervised release, and Cardenas was sentenced to 24 months imprisonment and three years supervised release. Both defendants were ordered to pay restitution of $254,469 to Medicare.

Alberto Gonzalez-Gomez was prosecuted separately and was sentenced to 24 months imprisonment.