Former Fugitive Sentenced to 37 Months for Healthcare Fraud

A Cuban national was sentenced to more than three years in prison after pleading guilty to a $2.6 million healthcare fraud against Medicare, according to the Department of Justice.

Ubert Guillermo Rodriguez, 47, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud in March 2016. Rodriguez, who had been a fugitive since his indictment in 2013 until his arrest in 2015, was also ordered to pay $918,000 in restitution and forfeit another $918,000. When federal authorities served a seizure warrant on Rodriguez’s bank account, they seized more than $243,000.

Rodriguez owned G.R. Services Equipment & Supplies near St. Petersburg. The company was supposed to supply medical equipment to Medicare beneficiaries. Rodriguez admitted his company submitted nearly $2.6 million in false claims to Medicare from May 2013 to June 2013. During that period, Rodriguez was reimbursed for hundreds of thousands of dollars for sterile collagen dressings and negative pressure wound therapy electrical pumps. Yet those items were never prescribed by doctors or given to beneficiaries.

The case was part of the Medicare Fraud Strike Force by the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Middle District of Florida.

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