Florida man vanishes after being sucked into sinkhole under his bedroom

SEFFNER --
A sheriff's deputy plucked a man from an expanding sinkhole, but neither was able to save the man's brother from being sucked into the rubble, authorities said.

Early Friday, authorities said the site at 240 Faithway Drive had become too unstable to continue rescue efforts and the focus would instead shift to a recovery operation.

The sinkhole opened late Thursday in the home's backyard, swallowing one of the home's four bedrooms.

Someone called 911, and a deputy reportedly found Jeremy Bush trying to pull his brother, Jeffrey, out of the hole when he arrived.

The deputy pulled Jeremy from the growing hole.

But Jeffrey Bush, 36, disappeared into the rubble.

Janell Wheeler was inside the house with four other adults, a child and two dogs when the sinkhole opened. She sat huddled in a lawn chair Friday morning, covered in a green quilt.

"It sounded like a car hit my house," she said.

It was dark. She remembers screams and Jeremy rushing to rescue his brother.

The rest of the family went to a hotel late Thursday, when the house was condemned and neighbors evacuated. But she stayed behind with her dog Baby Girl, sleeping in her Ford Focus.

"I just want my nephew," she said through tears.

Family members returned to the home around 7:30 a.m. Jeremy Bush leaned on a patrol car and cried, his chin shaking as his eyes filled with tears.

He said he just gone to bed when he heard a loud noise and cries for help from his brother's room.

Jeremy opened the door and found the dresser and bed had disappeared into a hole. He jumped in and began to dig. But he heard nothing more from his brother before the deputy pulled him from the rubble.

"I couldn't do anything," Jeremy said Friday, in front of the house where his brother was still buried. "Everything in the room was gone.

"I just wanted to get my brother back," he said. "That's all I wanted."

Wheeler paced the sidewalk nearby and hugged relatives. "It's a dream, right?" she said.

She still wore her blue plaid pajamas.

The rest of the neighborhood area bustled Friday morning with rescuers and neighbors and TV trucks straining to catch a glimpse of the sinkhole, apparently entirely contained within the one-story, four-bedroom home, which records show was built in 1974.

Rescue crews lowered listening devices and cameras into the hole, but found no signs of life, a Fire Rescue spokeswoman said — only more signs of collapse.

Heavy equipment was standing by for a recovery operation and ground-penetrating radar was brought in early Friday to help gauge the extent of the hole, which Fire Rescue says had grown to be about 20 feet deep and 30 feet wide.

Although it has proven somewhat common for sinkholes to open in Central Florida and swallow cars and houses, it is not at all common for people to become trapped in them.

In March 2011, a woman taking pictures in her Plant City back yard plunged into a hole when it opened beneath her.

But she clung on to her cellphone and was able to call for help. Only her fingertips peeked from the ground when an officer arrived, but he was able to pull her to safety.

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100-foot sinkhole swallows man inside bedroom

A large sinkhole opened under the bedroom of a house near Tampa, trapping a 36-year-old man in the rubble.

The home collapsed late Thursday in a Seffner neighborhood. By early Friday, Hillsborough County Fire Rescue officials determined the home had become too unstable to continue rescue efforts.

"Right now, the potential for a collapse is very, very high," Jessica Damico, a Hillsborough Fire and Rescue spokeswoman told MyFoxTampaBay.com.

"There was no furniture. All he saw was a piece of the mattress sticking up," Damico said.

There's been no contact with the man since then and neighbors on both sides of the Seffner home have been evacuated.

MYFOXTAMPA

The house that was partially swallowed by a 100-foot sinkhole in Tampa, Florida.

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Would-be convention center developers make pitches to Miami Beach residents

Developers on Wednesday presented Miami Beach residents with competing ideas for what the city’s Convention Center could look like after an overhaul.

It was the public’s first glimpse of what could become of the 52-acre site. Two heavy-hitting teams are competing for the project, which could cost up to $1 billion.

Both teams – Portman-CMC and South Beach ACE – stressed that the concepts presented Wednesday were only preliminary ideas.

Both teams’ proposals focus on creating lush greenscapes and ways to connect the enormous convention center with abutting neighborhoods – things that residents at a prior public meeting asked of the developers.

To do that, Portman-CMC, the team led by Portman Holdings, proposed several scenarios. In one, a diagonal plaza would grace the corner of the current convention center property, creating a string of parks to connect the center to the existing Miami Beach Botanical Garden and SoundScape Park.

The design focused on creating shade through both the buildings and landscaping, which is basically nonexistent now.

“This place is a black hole in terms of green, in terms of trees. We aim to change that," said Jamie Maslyn Larson, a Partner of West 8, the company partnering with Portman to landscape the project.

West 8 also worked on Miami Beach’s SoundScape Park, which features free outdoor movies and audio and video feeds of performances at the adjoining New World Symphony.

South Beach ACE, the team led by Tishman Hotel and Realty, proposed an underground parking area to hide idling trucks and buses – an issue that residents have complained about. Above the parking lot would be a rolling greenspace, and views of the now-ignored Collins Canal would be incorporated.

World-renowned architect Rem Koolhaas, part of the South Beach ACE team, called the current convention center a "serious problem" in the middle of the "idyllic" Miami Beach. His team’s design aims to correct that.

Tishman’s proposal also preserves the current Jackie Gleason Theater. Residents have debated whether the theater, which is not deemed historic, deserves to be preserved. The Tishman proposal would essentially remove a back wall of the theater to create a two-stage amphitheater.

Portman-CMC has not made a decision about whether the theater itself would stay, but spoke to preserving the legacy of Gleason himself. The team launched a website to get more resident feedback about its proposal: www.portmancmcmiamibeach.com.

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Miami-Dade mayor says partnerships, technology will move county forward

Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez will deliver his annual speech to the county Thursday, laying out his goals for revving up the local economy, promoting regional cooperation and improving a public transportation system that is, at best, inadequate.

In a wide-ranging interview previewing his state-of-the-county speech, Gimenez told The Miami Herald that he is optimistic about the county’s future, citing improved economic indicators and a record year for business at Miami International Airport and PortMiami, two major economic engines.

“I think we’re a hot commodity, and people are starting to see our potential,” he said. “We just need to keep our eye on the ball.”

Unlike his first speech a year ago, the political pressure is off this time for Gimenez, who in August was elected to his first full term in office. His first year amounted to a red-shirt season, completing the term of former Mayor Carlos Alvarez, who was ousted in a 2011 recall.

In Thursday’s speech, to be delivered at Liberty City’s Joseph Caleb Center, Gimenez will announce the creation of an advisory group to study rising property-insurance rates and make recommendations about how to lobby state lawmakers on the issue. The Florida Legislature regulates Citizens Property Insurance, the state’s insurer of last resort, which recently increased homeowners’ insurance rates and scaled back coverage.

“We’re going to look at why our people here are getting slammed,” Gimenez said.

A similar task force made recommendations last month to improve the county elections process. The county, however, generally has more control over elections than over property insurance.

The mayor will also promote an initiative — begun with Miami-Dade Schools Superintendent Alberto Carvalho and already underway — to prevent youth violence. And he will tout a new partnership announced Wednesday in which the county will take part in technology giant IBM’s Smart cities program, which lets local governments test and use software to better analyze municipal data.

Among his successes in office, Gimenez will mention streamlining permitting at some county agencies — in some cases by three months, he said — posting employee salaries online and providing internships in his office to college students.

Looking to spur entrepreneurship and create local jobs, Gimenez’s administration also has committed $1 million in funding over four years to Launch Pad, in conjunction with the University of Miami. Launch Pad is a public/private partnership that introduces young technology businesses to each other to help them grow.

In his speech, the mayor will also throw his support behind Endeavor, a global nonprofit that works to accelerate entrepreneurship in metropolitan areas. The organization plans to set up shop in Miami after receiving a $2 million grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

Taking the long view, Gimenez said he hopes to make it easier for commuters to take public transportation between Miami Beach and the mainland and from Kendall to the urban core. The mayor said he doesn’t have any specific plans yet — or money to finance them — but said that clogged streets are getting in the way of residents’ productivity.

By way of example, Gimenez said he left County Hall in downtown Miami at 5 p.m. on a recent afternoon for a 6:30 p.m. event at the Hammocks, in West Kendall.

“I didn’t make it,” he said. “I can’t imagine your having to do that every day. We’re wasting time. We’re spending money. We’re spending gas.”

For those and other big-ticket improvements, including looming, extensive water-and-sewer piping that will have to be replaced soon because it is so antiquated, Gimenez said Miami-Dade won’t be able to count on much state or federal financial aid. Instead, there will be some water-rate hikes in coming years, he said, and future transportation projects might be partnerships involving heavy private-sector investments.

“More and more, it’s likely that we’re going to have to do these things ourselves,” he said.

Better than going at it alone, Gimenez said, would be teaming up with counties with similar issues to share ideas and work together for funding and state support. To that end, Gimenez had dinner last year in St. Petersburg with the mayors of Jacksonville, Orlando and Tampa. He also has hosted the mayors of Broward and Palm Beach counties to brainstorm ways to work together.

“People have been very good and very successful at dividing us, and we’ve done that to ourselves,” Gimenez said. “We should have a lot more in common than we have differences.”

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Former Martha Stewart CEO Susan Lyne to run AOL's brands

AOL has hired one of its board members, former Martha Stewart Living CEO Susan Lyne, to run the AOL portfolio of brands.

The Internet company said Thursday that as CEO of its Brand Group, Lyne will be responsible for increasing traffic across its properties, bringing top talent on board and maximizing partnerships with advertisers and publishers.

Lyne takes over at the Brand Group from chief operating officer Arthur Minson, who was overseeing the company's three divisions. He will stay on during a transition period.

AOL says Lyne's experience as CEO and chairman of the retail shopping site Gilt, as well as her time as president and CEO of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, should help her at AOL. She also served as president of ABC Entertainment.

AP

Susan Lyne

AOL says Lyne currently serves as Gilt's vice chairman and will continue in that position.

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Don’t get too personal on LinkedIn

Have you ever received a request to connect on LinkedIn from someone you didn’t know or couldn’t remember?

A few weeks ago, Josh Turner encountered this situation. The online request to connect came from a businessman on the opposite coast of the United States. It came with a short introduction that ended with “Let’s go Blues!” a reference to Turner’s favorite hockey team in St. Louis that he had mentioned in his profile. “It was a personal connection … that’s building rapport.”

LinkedIn is known for being the professional social network where members expect you to keep buttoned-down behavior and network online like you would at a business event. With more than 200 million registered users, the site facilitates interaction as a way to boost your stature, gain a potential customer or rub elbows with a future boss.

But unlike most other social networking sites, LinkedIn is all about business — and you need to take special care that you act accordingly. As in any workplace, the right amount of personal information sharing could be the foot in the door, say experts. The wrong amount could slam it closed.

“Anyone in business needs a professional online presence,’’ says Vanessa McGovern, the VP of Business Development for the Global Institute for Travel Entrepreneurs and a consultant to business owners on how to use LinkedIn. But they should also heed LinkedIn etiquette or risk sending the wrong messages.

One of the biggest mistakes, McGovern says is getting too personal — or not personal enough.

Sending a request to connect blindly equates to cold calling and likely will lead nowhere. Instead, it should come with a personal note, an explanation of who you are, where you met, or how the connection can benefit both parties, McGovern explains.

Your profile should get a little personal, too, she says. “Talk about yourself in the first person and add a personal flair — your goals, your passion … make yourself seem human.”

Beyond that, keep your LinkedIn posts, invitations, comments and photos professional, McGovern says.

If you had a hard day at the office or your child just won an award, you may want to share it with your personal network elsewhere — but not on LinkedIn.

“This is not Facebook. Only share what you would share at a professional networking event,” she says.

Another etiquette pitfall on LinkedIn is the hit and run — making a connection and not following up.

At least once a week, Ari Rollnick, a principal in kabookaboo, an integrated marketing agency in Coral Gables, gets a request to connect with someone on LinkedIn that he has never met or heard of before. The person will have no connections in common and share no information about why they want to build a rapport.

“I won’t accept. That’s a lost opportunity for them,” Rollnick says.

He approaches it differently. When Rollnick graduated from Emory with an MBA in 2001, he had a good idea that his classmates would excel in the business world. Now, Rollnick wanted to find out just where they went and reestablish a connection.

With a few clicks, he tracked down dozens of them on LinkedIn, requested a connection, and was back on their radar. Then came the follow-up — letting them know through emails, phone calls and posts that he was creating a two-way street for business exchange. “Rather than make that connection and disappearing , I let them know I wanted to open the door to conversation.”

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Two charged with taking protected live sharks from the Keys

For the second time in weeks, federal prosecutors have ordered the arrest of people for illegally taking live sharks out of the Florida Keys.

Two officials of Idaho Aquarium Inc. in Boise were indicted on federal charges of conspiracy and illegally purchasing four spotted eagle rays and two lemon sharks, all protected species and all from Keys waters.

Ammon Covino, 39, president of Idaho Aquarium, and corporate secretary Christopher Conk, 40, were arraigned late last week in Idaho and ordered to appear in U.S. District Court in Key West on March 15.

The Idaho Aquarium is a display facility covering 10,000 square feet operating in a converted Boise warehouse. Listed as a nonprofit educational center, the aquarium opened in late 2011. It claims to offer "over 250 different species of animals and marine life" for the $9 adult admission fee.

The indictment from November was unsealed this month.

On Feb. 7, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Miami unsealed a separate indictment against two Broward County aquarium suppliers. They were charged with conspiracy to acquire and resell juvenile nurse sharks without a required permit, and angelfish larger than the maximum size allowed. Those fish from the Keys allegedly were sold to a Michigan buyer.

"While both cases relate to the marine living resources of the Florida Keys and involve violations of the Lacey Act, predicated in part on [Florida law], there is no public record material to suggest there is any other relationship between the cases," said Alicia Valle, spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office.

In the indictment against Idaho Aquarium and its officials, prosecutor Thomas Watts-Fitzgerald wrote that the defendants knowingly conspired with fish collectors in the Keys to have the rays and sharks captured without permits and shipped north.

After being offered $1,250 for each live eagle ray, an unnamed fish collector eventually told Covino that permits needed to take the rays could not be obtained. Covino reportedly answered, "Just start doing it.... Who gives a ...".

The collector reportedly shipped three eagle rays in May 2012 and another in June 2012. All were sent to Covino at the Idaho Aquarium.

A second unnamed collector reportedly was solicited by Conk in June for two lemon sharks. The collector said no capture permits for lemon sharks are being issued so "the transaction would have to be conducted on the 'down low,' " the indictment says.

In a later conversation, Covino is accused of saying the lack of permits for the lemon sharks was "no big deal." The lemon sharks were purchased for $650 each and sent to Idaho in October.

Neither collector was named in the indictment.

According to the U.S. District Court documents, Covino and Conk could receive prison terms of up to five years on each of four counts.

The Idaho Aquarium could be fined $500,000. The government is seeking to seize Conk's 2005 Ford pickup truck, reportedly used to transport the fish from an airport.

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Chuck Hagel takes helm at Pentagon after bitter fight

WASHINGTON — Chuck Hagel took charge Wednesday of the Defense Department with deep budget cuts looming and Republican opponents still doubtful that he's up to the job.

He took the oath of office as Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon and was expected to address civilian and uniformed employees of the department later Wednesday morning.

The bitter, seven-week fight over his nomination ended Tuesday as a deeply divided Senate voted 58-41 to confirm him. Just four Republicans joined Democrats in backing the former two-term Republican senator from Nebraska and twice-wounded Vietnam combat veteran.

Getty Images

New Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel is greeted by USMC Lt. General Thomas Waldheuser (not pictured) who will serve as Hagel's Senior Private Military Assistant, as he arrives for his first day at the Department of Defense Wednesday.

"I am honored that President Obama and the Senate have entrusted me to serve our nation once again," Hagel said in a statement Tuesday. "I can think of no greater privilege than leading the brave, dedicated men and women of the Department of Defense as they perform vital missions around the globe."

Hagel promised to work closely with Congress, but he faces lingering reservations about his ability to handle the responsibilities. Shortly after the vote, Sen. Lindsey Graham said he still has serious questions about Hagel and his qualifications.

"I hope, for the sake of our own national security, he exceeds expectations," said the South Carolina Republican.

The top Republican on the Armed Services Committee, Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, said Hagel's record on Israel, Iran, defense spending and nuclear weapons "demonstrate, in my view, a profound and troubling lack of judgment on many of the critical issues he will now be confronted with as secretary of defense."

But Inhofe promised to work with Hagel to avoid the $46 billion in automatic, across-the-board budget cuts that hit the Pentagon on Friday.

Obama alluded to the need for cooperation in his statement welcoming the vote.

The president said he was grateful to Hagel "for reminding us that when it comes to our national defense, we are not Democrats or Republicans, we are Americans, and our greatest responsibility is the security of the American people."

Hagel joins Obama's retooled national security team, including Secretary of State John Kerry and CIA Director-designate John Brennan, at a time of uncertainty for a military emerging from two wars and fighting worldwide terrorism with smaller, deficit-driven budgets.

Among his daunting challenges are dealing with the budget cuts and deciding on troop levels in Afghanistan as the United States winds down its combat presence. He also will have to work with lawmakers who spent weeks vilifying him.

Republicans insisted that Hagel was battered and bloodied after their repeated attacks during the protracted political fight.

"He will take office with the weakest support of any defense secretary in modern history, which will make him less effective on his job," said Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the Senate GOP's No. 2 Republican.

Not so, said Democratic Sen. Jack Reed, who pointed out that Hagel now has the title and the fight is history.

"All have to work together for the interest of the country," said Reed, D-R.I.

The vote ended one of the bitterest fights over a Cabinet choice and former senator since 1989, when the Democratic-led Senate defeated newly elected President George H.W. Bush's nomination of Republican John Tower to be defense secretary. This time, Republicans waged an unprecedented filibuster of a president's Pentagon pick and Hagel only secured the job after Republicans dropped their delay.

A 71-27 vote to end the filibuster cleared the way for Hagel's confirmation.

In the course of the rancorous nomination fight, Republicans, led by Inhofe and freshman Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, insinuated that Hagel has a cozy relationship with Iran and received payments for speeches from extreme or radical groups. Those comments drew rebukes from Democrats and some Republicans.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, dismissed the "unfair innuendoes" against Hagel and called him an "outstanding American patriot" whose background as an enlisted soldier would send a positive message to the nation's servicemen and women.

Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., questioned how the confirmation process devolved into a character assassination in which Hagel was accused of "having secret ties with our enemies."

"I sincerely hope that the practice of challenging nominations with innuendo and inference, rather than facts and figures, was an aberration and not a roadmap," she said in a statement after the vote.

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Coral Gables native Martin Zweig, Wall Street wiz, dies in Florida

A decade before he foresaw the 1987 stock market crash, Coral Gables native Marty Zweig was already considered a Wall Street wizard.

Renown business journalist Dan Dorfman called him “the country’s hottest investment adviser” in 1981, his picture appeared on the cover of Money Magazine in 1982, and he was frequent guest on the PBS financial show Wall Street Week.

He wrote two best-selling books: Winning on Wall Street, in 1986, and Winning with New IRAs, in 1987.

On Oct. 19 that year, just as Zweig had predicted three days earlier on Wall Street Week, the market plummeted 23 percent.

Zweig, whose three-story Pierre Hotel penthouse is one of New York City’s most lavish residences, died Feb. 18 at another of his homes, on South Florida’s Fisher Island. He was 70. Zweig had been treated for cancer, and underwent a liver transplant in 2010 with tissue from his younger son.

Born Martin Edward Zweig on July 2, 1942, in Cleveland, he spent his formative years growing up in Coral Gables where he was known as Marty Gateman after his widowed mother remarried.

He attended Coral Gables Elementary and Ponce de Leon Junior High schools, was a Coral Gables High School varsity basketball player and track star — class of 1960 — and 2001 Cavalier’s school Hall of Famer.

Childhood friend Richard B. Bermont, a Miami financial adviser, remembered Zweig as a great poker player even in high school, “pretty much a jokester, and the ladies loved him.’’

He legally changed his last name back to Zweig when he was 21, after his mother and Dr. Gateman divorced, said former wife Mollie Friedman.

Zweig wrote that his interest in financial began when the 1948 Cleveland Indians were playing in the World Series.

“I was the kid who knew the most about the team and had a vague idea about what batting averages mean. I had begun to love numbers. Perhaps this was a tip-off that I’d later graduate to the market.’’

He earned a bachelor’s in economics from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1964, later an M.B.A. from the University of Miami and a doctorate in finance from Michigan State University.

In 1984, Zweig joined with stock picker Joe DiMenna, with whom he co-founded Zweig-DiMenna Partners, their first long/short hedge fund.

Zweig also created two closed-end funds traded on the New York Stock Exchange, according to his corporate biography: The Zweig Fund in 1986 and The Zweig Total Return Fund in 1988.

In his first book, he wrote: “When playing the market, remember you must deal with probabilities, employ sensible strategies to limit risk, and get aggressive only when conditions warrant.’’

He was as quirky in his private life as he was serious about investing. Stan Smith, a Fisher Island friend, said that last year, Zweig installed a “banana yellow’’ 1934 Packard convertible in his living room.

Zweig’s memorabilia collection includes the dress Marilyn Monroe wore to sing “Happy Birthday” to President John F. Kennedy in 1962, a pair of JFK’s silk pajamas, the suits The Beatles wore on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964, Super Bowl rings, Heisman Trophies, Oscar statuettes and Gold Records; one of the Harley-Davidson Hydra-Glide motorcycles that actor Peter Fonda rode in the film “Easy Rider;” an outfit that Jimi Hendrix wore in concert; and the booking sheet from one of Al Capone’s arrests, and a letter written by baseball legend Mickey Mantle describing a sexual encounter at Yankee Stadium.

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Miami businessman who pleaded guilty to stealing millions from Medicare is sentenced to 14 years in prison

A local businessman who moved his mental health chain from Miami-Dade to North Carolina after the feds suspected him of a Medicare scam was sentenced to 14 years in prison on Monday and ordered to reimburse the taxpayer-funded program $28 million.

Kept behind bars since his arrest because of fears he might flee to Cuba, Armando “Manny” Gonzalez pleaded guilty in December to stealing tens of millions of dollars from Medicare by fraudulently billing the federal program and laundering the proceeds to support an affluent lifestyle.

Gonzalez, 50, a convicted cocaine trafficker who joined the Medicare rackets in the mid-2000 era, had opened a pair of mental health clinics in the Kendall and Cutler Bay areas. By 2008, Gonzalez moved himself and his business to North Carolina to stay one step ahead of federal agents.

But they caught up with him. Before his arrest in May 2012, he was planning to open another psychotherapy clinic in Tennessee.

Gonzalez was indicted with others on charges of conspiring to defraud $63 million from Medicare. He was ordered held without bail after prosecutors argued he was a “flight risk” to his native Cuba.

Dozens of Cuban immigrants charged in South Florida with trying to bilk the federal healthcare program for seniors have fled to the island, which historically has turned a blind eye and doesn’t return the fugitives to the United States because the nations do not have an extradiction agreement.

In December, Gonzalez pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Cecilia Altonaga to one count of conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. Under the terms of his plea agreement, Gonzalez agreed to forfeit property valued at several million dollars, including $987,910 seized in July as well as a one-acre home, vehicles and other assets in Hendersonville, N.C.

Several defendants were charged for their alleged roles in Gonzalez’s business, Health Care Solutions Network, with 10 pleading guilty so far.

According to court records, Gonzalez’s company, Health Care Solutions Network, billed both Medicare and the Florida Medicaid program for purported mental health services that patients did not need.

Gonzalez’s three clinics -- accused of entertaining patients with TV and movies instead of providing actual group psychotherapy sessions -- collected $28 million in Medicare payments from 2004 to 2011. Justice Department lawyers said in court papers that the “vast majority” of the money “disappeared” with a “substantial portion ... laundered through shell corporations.”

Among others charged in the scheme are, John Thoen, a registered nurse, and three employees, Alexandra Haynes, Serena Joslin and Sarah Da Silva Keller. All have pleaded guilty.

Also charged in the scheme: Daniel Martinez, Raymond Rivero, Ivon Perez and Alba Serrano, operators of three assisted-living facilities in the Homestead area called Mi Renacer, God Is First and Kayleen and Denis Care.

The ALF operators, who have pleaded guilty, were accused of taking bribes from Gonzalez in exchange for supplying a steady stream of patients, many of whom suffered from dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. They could not have benefited from the therapy, prosecutors said.

“Once the unqualified patients were admitted to HCSN, Gonzalez’s employees would fabricate virtually every portion of the patients’ mental health medical records,” the Justice Department said in a statement.

“The fake medical records were then utilized to support false billings to government sponsored health care benefit programs and to avoid detection by Medicare auditors.”

The case was prosecuted by trial attorneys William Parente and Allan J. Medina of the Justice Department’s fraud section, with agents from the FBI and U.S. Department Health and Human Services-Office of Inspector General leading the investigation.

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