Clinic owner pleads guilty to bilking Medicare with $55 million in false claims

MIAMI — Pitcher Ihosvany Marquez got drafted by the Baltimore Orioles in 1990 and went on to make millions of dollars.

Not from throwing strikes — but from ripping off the federal Medicare program.

On Monday, Marquez pleaded guilty in Miami federal court to health care fraud charges alleging he submitted $55 million in false Medicare claims for HIV and cancer services at his seven Miami-Dade and Orlando area clinics. He and his partners raked in $22 million from the government health care program for the elderly and disabled.

During Monday’s hearing, U.S. District Judge Patricia Seitz asked Marquez why he was pleading guilty, and he said matter-of-factly: “Because I’m guilty.”

The judge said Marquez, 38, could be imprisoned up to 32 years at his June 29 sentencing, though his punishment is expected to be about 20 years.

The story of Marquez going from the big leagues to
the business world and the soon-to-be big house began when he was a
teenager growing up in the Miami area.

Marquez became a right-handed pitching star at Miami Springs High and was picked 994th overall in the Major League amateur draft in June 1990. He pitched on Minor League teams for the Orioles and Boston Red Sox, hanging up his cleats in 1996.

“I was bouncing around, one season here, one season there,” Marquez told the judge.

He held down jobs as a truck driver, beer salesman
and cosmetics distributor for a few years — then came to know people in
the close-knit community involved in Medicare fraud and eventually hit the jackpot.

Marquez and his partners, who were charged in a separate indictment, became wealthy by billing “huge numbers” to Medicare for HIV and cancer therapy as well as pain treatments, according to Marquez’s attorney Michael Walsh.

His spending habits rank him as an unusually big spender among the hundreds of local Medicare-licensed operators convicted of bilking the government program during the past decade.

Marquez spent his share of taxpayer money on
jewelry, watches and racing horses, according to court records. He was
especially fond of luxury cars, buying 19 for himself, his wife, other
relatives and for his personal trainer.

The purchases included Lamborghini Murcielago with spaceship-like doors at $455,959, a Lamborghini Gallardo,
a Ferrari 612 Scaglietti, two Bentley Continental GTs, two
Mercedes-Benz CL63s and at least six Mercedes-Benz S550s. The total
tab: $2.7 million.

He also spent $545,652 on jewelry and watches, among them a Rolex Meteorite for $48,000 and a diamond necklace for $108,443, authorities say. And he bought a seven-carat diamond ring for $98,086.

His family’s 5,000-square-foot home was valued at nearly $933,000 last year, according to property records. Then there was the $1 million he spent on thoroughbred horses.

Magistrate Judge Barry Garber was
so troubled by his conspicuous consumption that in early January he
refused to give Marquez a bond — citing his “access to substantial
wealth” to flee the country.

Marquez was accused of operating six fraudulent Miami-Dade clinics — including one called Tender Loving Care — with partner Michel De Jesus Huarte.

Huarte was indicted separately last June on charges of submitting more than $50 million in bogus claims to Medicare for purported infusion therapy to treat patients with cancer, HIV and varicose veins.

Huarte, 38, who pleaded guilty, was sentenced to 22 years in prison and ordered to pay $18.3 million to the government.

The partners stole Medicare patients’
numbers and physicians’ IDs to fleece the federal program, without
providing any services to patients, according to prosecutors. They also
laundered the Medicare payments through “shell” companies such as Babalu Telemarketing and Madreagua Construction — named after Santeria saints.

But Huarte and Marquez couldn’t have beat the system
without recruiting Cuban immigrants to pose as the owners of their
clinics, prosecutors said.

“Marquez and his conspirators paid large fees to such nominee owners — sometimes in excess of $100,000 — with the understanding that the nominee owner would flee to Cuba or another foreign country to evade law enforcement capture,” federal prosecutor Ryan Stumphauzer wrote in Marquez’s plea agreement.

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