Whistleblower News From The Inside -- July 31, 2017
By the C|C Whistleblower Lawyer Team
How Whistleblowers are Retaliated Against – The July 25 Health & Science article “The psychology of whistleblowers and why only some are willing to go there” examined what it takes to be a whistleblower. I have had that experience as a federal employee in an agency that “encourages” dissenting opinions. Although supposedly protected by law against retaliation, government whistleblowers often encounter passive retaliation in the form of “chilled” work environments, usually prompting them to leave their job and seek another with the stigma of “non-company person” as a millstone around their neck. My government agency seeks to eliminate such types of retribution through a policy whereby employees are encouraged to submit “differing professional opinions” on technical and policy decisions with which they disagree. Ostensibly, they are immune from retaliation. But passive retaliation is still taken, enabling the agency to skirt any accusations of direct retribution. Washington Post
Bribes to Low-Paid State Worker Key to $1 Billion Miami Medicare Fraud Case, Prosecutors Say – Philip Esformes is a fabulously rich businessman who once made more than $10 million in a single year from his network of Miami-Dade nursing and assisted living facilities. He also owns two homes next door to each other on the exclusive North Bay Road in Miami Beach, along with numerous other properties in Miami, Chicago and Los Angeles. Bertha Blanco, a former state administrator who lives in working-class Hialeah, made $31,281 a year overseeing inspections of the very same kinds of healthcare facilities in Miami-Dade. She was fired in late 2016 after working for 29 years at the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration. Miami Herald
Miami-Dade ALF Owners Sentenced in $1 Million Medicare Fraud – Ten owners of Miami-Dade assisted-living facilities were sentenced last week for their role in a Medicare fraud scheme by the owner of Hialeah’s Florida Pharmacy. Most received a year and a day in federal prison followed by three years of supervised release. Each ALF owner sentenced by U.S. District Judge Marcia G. Cooke assisted pharmacy owner Maria Serrano in a million-dollar scam that used patients as pawns. In court documents, Serrano admitted to paying kickbacks to the ALF owners for sending Medicare or Medicaid receiving residents to Florida Pharmacy for prescriptions and durable medical equipment. The ALF owners also would return to Serrano any unused prescription drugs already paid for by Medicare or Medicaid. Serrano would resell those drugs and submit false claims to Medicare and Medicaid. Miami Herald