Ernesto Angel Montaner, aged 70, a member of a prominent Miami Cuban family, is facing healthcare fraud charges for the second time, according to the South Florida Sun Sentinel. Montaner was the sole defendant acquitted in a vast healthcare fraud prosecution in the 1990s for an alleged $15 million in false claims to Medicare.
The government alleges that, from 2006 to 2008, Montaner submitted approximately $6.2 million in false claims to Medicare at rehabilitation clinics which he operated, including Infinity Therapy and Miami Dade Medical Group. Montaner and others are alleged to have bribed or paid kickbacks to assisted-living facilities, home health care agencies, patient recruiters and patients in exchange for referrals. Many of the patients referred to Montaner did not require physical therapy/occupational therapy services.
Montaner fled to Costa Rica in early 2009 after government agents raided his offices, where he lived on a farm worth $1 million. However, the government successfully extradited Montaner back to the U.S. in February. The current set of charges against Montaner arose out a sting operation by the FBI using a registered nurse and convicted felon posing as a patient recruiter, as well as a physician convicted of Medicare fraud and other ex-felons and recruits posing as patients with ailments. Montaner allegedly paid the informants cash to refer Medicare patients to him. The informants also signed off on claims for 17 rehabilitation sessions which were never given.
The government has also charged Montaner's business partner and his son, Ernesto Montaner Jr., 45, who entered a guilty plea to manipulating Medicare billing codes to maximize patient visits, was sentenced to four years in prison and is cooperating with authorities. Montaner's partner, Jose A. Varona, 39, a patient recruiter, has been sentenced to three years imprisonment and has also given information to the FBI.
