Philip Esformes, the former Penn parent and Miami healthcare magnet, was ordered to pay over $44 million to Medicare and the US government.
On November 21, US District Judge Robert Scola ruled that Esformes must pay $5 million to Medicare in order to reimburse the loss and $39 million to the federal government as a punishment for his crime. In addition, he must pay $617,000 to the U.S. government for his incarceration, according to the Miami Herald.
In September, Esformes was sentenced to 20 years in prison because he was found guilty of a $1 billion Medicare fraud scheme, including kickbacks, bribery and money laundering.
He was found guilty for giving former Penn men’s basketball coach Jerome Allen over $300,000 as bribes so that his son would gain admission to Penn as a basketball recruit, to which Allen testified in Miami federal court.
Prosecutors said that the bribed money came directly from the Medicare fraud case, according to the Chicago Tribune.
In addition, it was found Esformes sent more than $400,000 to the charity of William “Rick” Singer.
Judge Scola said, “I gave him a lesser number of years in prison in anticipation of a significant financial penalty.”
Esformes run 24 healthcare facilities from Chicago to Miami, which bribed medical professionals for referring patients to his Florida facilities, according to the Chicago Tribune.
In many of his facilities, older patients were admitted alongside young adults who were suffering from mental health issues and drug addiction. In a pre-sentencing memorandum, the prosecutors wrote, “An elderly patient was attacked and beaten to death by a younger mental health patient who never should have been at [a nursing facility] in the first place.”
