Miami, FL Resident Found Guilty of Health Care Fraud, Identity Theft and Money Laundering in Kentucky

Man involved in Louisville, Kentucky health care fraud ring found guilty on all counts

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – A Miami, Florida, man, was found guilty last week in United States District Court of Health Care Fraud, Conspiracy to Commit Health Care Fraud, Aggravated Identity Theft, and Conspiracy to Commit Money Laundering, announced United States Attorney Russell M. Coleman.

Following a three-week trial, a federal jury deliberated approximately 4 hours before finding Ledinson Chavez, 39, guilty on all counts against him for his part in a scheme to attempt to defraud health insurance providers out of more than $5 million for services that were never provided.

According to the evidence presented at trial, beginning no later than on or about June 12, 2012, and continuing through on or about November 1, 2014, Chavez along with Claudia Lopez, Oskel Lezcano, Ariel Borrego-Hernandez, Sergio Betancourt and Yuriesky Diaz Rodriguez recruited unsuspecting chiropractors for employment in Louisville area chiropractic clinics in order to obtain and use the chiropractors’ names and National Provider Identifiers (NPI) to fraudulently bill insurance companies.

Thereafter, the group of defendants recruited employees from Jeffboat and others to seek chiropractic services from the clinics. However, unbeknownst to the chiropractors, the clinics billed over $5,000,000 for methocarbamol injections (a muscle relaxant), using the patients’ names, dates of birth, insurance/policy numbers, addresses, and patient IDs/Social Security Numbers for injections. Most of the patients from Jeffboat were paid to go to the clinics by the defendants and were told the injections were being billed, according to testimony during trial.

Lopez, Lezcano, Borrego-Hernandez, Betancourt, and Chavez operated and controlled multiple chiropractic clinics in the Louisville area including: Xpress Diagnostics Center, Inc.; Prudential Chiropractic Medical Center, PLLC; Klondike Chiropractic Medical Center, LLC; Be Well Chiropractic Center, Corp.; Chiropractic and Medical Center, LLC, even though the clinics were placed in various chiropractors’ names.

Sentencing is scheduled for November 29, 2018, Chavez faces a guideline sentence of 102-121 months in federal prison; 24-months is the mandatory minimum sentence, and restitution of $1,108,757.50.

Assistant United States Attorneys Joseph Ansari, Lettricea Jefferson-Webb and Christopher Tieke prosecuted the case. Mary Kennedy, paralegal, and Robert Masterson, health care fraud investigator, assisted the prosecution team. The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the United States Postal Inspection Service, the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation, the Louisville Metro Police Department, and the National Insurance Crime Bureau.