A Florida man was convicted Friday of running an 18-year, $1.3 billion health-care fraud that prosecutors called the largest such scheme ever charged by the Justice Department.
Philip Esformes, a 50-year-old Miami Beach resident, used a network of nursing homes and assisted-living facilities in South Florida to defraud U.S. government health-care programs while providing inadequate and unnecessary care to patients, prosecutors said.
Esformes made off with at least $37 million for himself from 1998 to 2016, according to prosecutors, using the money to finance a lavish lifestyle of fancy cars and a $360,000 watch. Esformes also used some of the proceeds from the fraud to bribe the University of Pennsylvania basketball coach to help get his son into the school, prosecutors said. The coach pleaded guiltyto money laundering last year in connection with the case.
An attorney for Esformes didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
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