Tampa Resident Indicted for Involvement with Tricare Health Care Fraud Scheme

[nitpicker]

https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdfl/pr/tampa-resident-indicted-involvement-tricare-health-care-fraud-scheme

Department of Justice
U.S. Attorney’s Office
Southern District of Florida

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, December 13, 2016

Tampa Resident Indicted for Involvement with Tricare Health Care Fraud Scheme

Tampa resident indicted in the Southern District of Florida for his involvement in Tricare health care fraud scheme, money laundering, and the misbranding of drugs.

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Monty Ray Grow, 45, of Tampa, is charged by Indictment with conspiracy to defraud the United States and to pay and receive health care kickbacks, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 371; health care fraud, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1347; receipt of kickbacks in connection with a federal health care program, in violation of Title 42, United States Code, Section 1320a-7b(b)(1)(A); payment of kickbacks in connection with a federal health care program, in violation of Title 42, United States Code, Section 1320a-7b(b)(2)(B); money laundering, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1957; and causing the misbranding of drugs while held for sale, in violation of Title 21, United States Code, Sections 331(k) and 331(a)(1).

According to allegations in the indictment, between September 2014 and June 2015, Grow received approximately $20 million in kickbacks from a Broward County, Florida compounding pharmacy in exchange for recruiting and referring patients that were covered by the Tricare health care insurance program. The Tricare program is responsible for providing medical coverage for military personnel, military retirees and military dependents worldwide. The Indictment further alleges that Grow and others defrauded Tricare by paying telemedicine companies to provide compounded medication prescriptions to the recruited patients without conducting any physical examination of the patients as required by law, and that these invalid prescriptions were issued without regard to the patients’ medical necessity. The Indictment alleges Grow laundered cash proceeds of the fraud and kickback schemes through purchases of real estate, luxury vehicles and securities.
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