FORT LAUDERDALE — A federal choose has sentenced a one-time sober house operator from Jupiter to 4 years in jail for defrauding a medical health insurance advantages program of greater than $4 million.
Joseph Toro, 39, acquired his sentence on Wednesday, April 10, throughout a listening to in Fort Lauderdale earlier than U.S. District Decide Rodney Smith. Toro pleaded responsible in February to at least one rely of well being care fraud.
Federal prosecutors mentioned Toro used fraudulently obtained insurance coverage profit funds to buy a waterfront mansion in Jupiter, a Lamborghini Aventador, a Mercedes G Wagon and two Cadillac Escalades, in addition to an Audemars Piguet watch, together with numerous different properties and luxurious autos.
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Toro owned and operated Reawakenings Wellness Heart in Miramar from 2013 to January 2018, when the enterprise was evicted from its location.
Regardless of the eviction, Toro continued to submit insurance coverage claims to the Federal Workers Well being Advantages Program (FEHB) utilizing the knowledge of former sufferers. The claims had been for substance-abuse remedies that had been by no means offered, federal prosecutors mentioned.
For greater than a 12 months, Toro submitted fraudulent claims on behalf of 29 sufferers totaling greater than $6.7 million. Consequently, he acquired $4.2 million in funds from FEHB, courtroom data present.
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He additionally utilized for a federal $150,000 Financial Damage Catastrophe Mortgage supposed to assist struggling small companies through the COVID-19 pandemic, even supposing his enterprise had shut down years earlier.
On the sentencing listening to, Smith ordered that Toro’s jail time period be adopted by three years of probation and that he pay $4.4 million in restitution.
Julius Whigham II is a prison justice and public security reporter for The Palm Seaside Put up. You may attain him atjwhigham@pbpost.com and comply with him on X, the platform previously generally known as Twitter, at@JuliusWhigham. Assist help our work:Subscribe as we speak.
