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Date: 08-19-2022
Case Style:
Case Number: 0:21-cr-60048-RKA
Judge: Roy K. Altman
Court: United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida (Miami-Dade County)
Plaintiff's Attorney: United States Attorney’s Office
Defendant's Attorney:
Description: Miami, Florida criminal lawyer represented Defendant charged with fraud.
Matthew Smith, 58, of Boca Raton, Florida, pleaded guilty on January 24, 2022, to one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud. His executive assistant, Alisa Catoggio, 41, also of Boca Raton, Florida, pleaded guilty on May 17, 2022, to one count of conspiring to pay healthcare kickbacks. In connection with the plea, Smith admitted his role submitting fraudulent claims to Tricare and CHAMPVA for expensive, medically unnecessary compound drugs through a Broward pharmacy. Tricare and CHAMPVA are the health care benefit programs for the United States Department of Defense and Department of Veterans Affairs. In furtherance of the scheme, Smith paid kickbacks to patient recruiters in exchange for their recruiting beneficiaries and referring prescriptions for the medical unnecessary drugs. For her role, Catoggio calculated and tracked the kickbacks and sham co-pay assistance programs used to further the scheme. The fraudulent referrals caused an actual loss to the government programs of approximately $88 million.
In addition to the prison sentence, the Court imposed restitution in the amount of $75,106,971.
DCIS, FBI Miami, VA-OIG, and FDA-OCI investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jon Juenger prosecuted the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Daren Grove is handling the asset forfeiture component of the case.
18:1349.F.ATTEMPT AND CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT MAIL FRAUD
(1)
18:371.F.CONSPIRACY TO DEFRAUD THE UNITED STATES
(2)
42:1320A.F.PAYMENT TO NON-LICENSED PHYSICIAN
(3-7)
Outcome: Defendant was sentenced to 90 months in prison.
Plaintiff's Experts:
Defendant's Experts:
Comments: