- Article for photo above found @: Saboteur365.wordpress.com
"For years, wealthy nursing home operator Philip Esformes seemed to live in perpetual motion, using private jets to travel between his Water Towne Place condominium and his mansions in Miami and Los Angeles.
Now federal authorities are applying extraordinary court pressure to keep Esformes locked in a Flordia detention cell where he awaits trial for allegedly orchestrating an unprecedented $1 billion Medicaid and Medicare bribery and kickback scheme.
"This is the largest single criminal health care fraud case ever brought against individuals by the Department of Justice," Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell said at a July 22 news conference announcing the charges.
From their Lincolnwood offices, Esformes and his father and business partner, Morris Esformes, took in millions of dollars annually from federal programs for the sick and disabled.
The new federal indictment alleges that Philip Esformes and a handful of Miami co-conspirators bilked Medicaid and Medicare for 14 years by cyclying some 14,000 patients through various Esformes facilities, where many received unnecessary or even harmful treatments. Drug addicts were allegedly lured to the facilities with promises of narcotics, and prosecutors say some received OxyContin and fentanyl without a physican's order to entice them to stay.
As part of the kickbacks exchanged between Philip Esformes and corrupt medical professionals, the Justice Department alleged, "high-end escorts" were flown to Orlando and chauffeured in limousines for liaisons with Esformes at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel..."
Read entire article with photos @: Chicago Tribune
