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Pharmacy Owner Sentenced in Manhattan Federal Court to
78 Months in Prison for Multimillion-Dollar
Medicaid Fraud
PREET BHARARA, the United States Attorney for the
Southern District of New York, announced that YEFRY BURGOS, the
former owner of a Manhattan pharmacy, was sentenced today in
Manhattan federal court to 78 months in prison. The sentence was
imposed by United States District Judge WILLIAM H. PAULEY III,
who also ordered the defendant to pay $3,024,822 in restitution
to the New York State Medicaid Program ("Medicaid"). BURGOS
pleaded guilty on March 23, 2009, to health care fraud for
orchestrating a scheme to bill Medicaid for millions of dollars
in medications that were not actually dispensed to Medicaid
beneficiaries.
According to documents filed in this case and
statements made during court proceedings:
BURGOS, 33, of Bronx, New York, owned Coral Pharmacy, a
now-defunct pharmacy located at 4126 Broadway in Manhattan.
Between December 2006 and January 2008, BURGOS was involved in a
fraudulent scheme to bill Medicaid for prescription medications
that were never dispensed. BURGOS and Coral Pharmacy's manager,
LOURDES BASTARDO, purchased drug prescriptions from Medicaid
beneficiaries for a fraction of the amount the Medicaid Program
would reimburse to the pharmacy. To execute the scheme, BURGOS
visited banks where Coral Pharmacy maintained its accounts to
withdraw, on approximately a daily basis, thousands of dollars in
cash—delivering a substantial portion to BASTARDO to buy the
prescriptions. The pharmacy then submitted reimbursement claims
to Medicaid for the full value of the drugs it falsely claimed
were provided to Medicaid beneficiaries. Through this scheme,
BURGOS and Coral Pharmacy obtained the full value of the Medicaid
reimbursement for the drug prescriptions, pocketing the
difference between the reimbursement and the cash that they paid
to the beneficiaries.
In sentencing BURGOS, Judge PAULEY stated that the defendant was "a poster child for part of the problem with the
health care system," and "a predator who needed to be curbed. In addition to the prison term and forfeiture, the Judge
sentenced BURGOS to three years' supervised release. The
defendant was remanded to the custody of the United States
Marshals.
BASTARDO, 55, of Galloway City, New Jersey, pleaded
guilty to health care fraud on September 11, 2009, before
Magistrate Judge KEVIN NATHANIEL FOX, and is awaiting sentencing
by Judge PAULEY.
United States Attorney BHARARA thanked the Federal
Bureau of Investigation, the New York City Human Resources
Administration's Bureau of Fraud Investigation, and the Office of
the Medicaid Inspector General of New York State for their work
in this investigation.
Assistant United States Attorney WILLIAM STELLMACH is
in charge of the case, which was conducted by the Office's Major
Crimes Unit.
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