Medicare fraud
Esformes ran a network of nursing homes in Florida, Illinois, and Missouri that he used to perpetrate a massive Medicaid fraud scheme involving about $1.3 billion in fraudulent claims. He billed Medicare and Medicaid for medically unnecessary services or services that were not provided, paid and received kickbacks, paid bribes to doctors to refer patients to his facilities, bribed doctors and state regulators. [4] [5]
Esformes also used narcotics as lures, directing his facilities to give powerful opioids like OxyContin and fentanyl to get the patients addicted so they remained at the facilities and he could continue billing Medicare and Medicaid for their care. [4] [6]
An FBI agent called him “a man driven by almost unbounded greed.” [7] He was sentenced to 20 years in prison for healthcare fraud, illegal kickbacks, bribery, and money laundering and payment of approx. $44 million (about $5.5 million in restitution and $39 million in forfeiture) to the U.S. Government. [8] [9]
On December 22, 2020, President Donald Trump commuted his sentence [10] upon suggestion by his son in law Jared Kushner and the Aleph Institute [11] , meaning the remainder of his 20-year prison term was canceled, but the other parts of his sentence were left intact.
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