Month: February 2025

Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division

Note: View the settlement here.

Saad Enterprises Inc., doing business as Saad Healthcare, has agreed to pay $3 million to resolve allegations that it violated the False Claims Act by knowingly submitting false claims for the care of hospice patients in Alabama who were ineligible for the Medicare hospice benefit because they were not terminally ill.

Hospice care is special, end-of-life care intended to comfort terminally ill patients. Patients admitted to hospice care generally stop receiving traditional medical care designed to cure their terminal condition and instead receive medical care focused on providing them with relief from the symptoms, pain, and stress of a terminal illness. Medicare patients are considered to be terminally ill and hospice-eligible when they have a life expectancy of six months or less if their illness runs its normal course.

“Respectful and appropriate end-of-life care is the crux of the hospice benefit under Medicare,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate of the Justice Department’s Civil Division. “The Department will hold accountable those who exploit this benefit for their own gain.”

“Caring for terminally ill people is a responsibility the United States and the Medicare program take seriously,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Keith A. Jones for the Southern District of Alabama. “Patients and taxpayers deserve not to be cheated, and the Department of Justice will continue to protect them.”

The settlement resolves allegations that between 2013 and 2020 Saad submitted, or caused the submission of, false claims to Medicare for 21 patients who did not meet the eligibility requirements for the Medicare hospice benefit as defined by statute and regulation, despite Saad knowing the patients were ineligible for the Medicare hospice benefit.

The civil settlement resolved a lawsuit filed under the qui tam or whistleblower provision of the False Claims Act, which permits private parties to file suit on behalf of the United States for false claims and share in a portion of the Government’s recovery. The qui tam lawsuit was filed by Melissa Wolff and Whitney Sims, former Saad employees, and is captioned United States ex rel. Wolff & Sims v. Saad Enterprises, Inc., Case No. 1:19-cv-00040 (S.D. Ala.). Ms. Wolff and Ms. Sims will receive $540,000 in connection with the settlement.

The resolution obtained in this matter was the result of a coordinated effort amongst the Justice Department’s Civil Division, Commercial Litigation Branch, Fraud Section; the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Alabama; and the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General.

The investigation and resolution of this matter illustrates the government’s emphasis on combating healthcare fraud. One of the most powerful tools in this effort is the False Claims Act. Tips and complaints from all sources about potential fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement, can be reported to the Department of Health and Human Services at 800-HHS-TIPS (800-447-8477).

Assistant U.S. Attorney Nina Herring for the Southern District of Alabama and Trial Attorney Rory Skaggs of the Civil Division handled the matter.

The claims resolved by the settlement are allegations only and there has been no determination of liability.

Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division

A federal jury in Miami convicted a Colorado man yesterday for sexually abusing numerous boys at the orphanage he founded and directed in Haiti.

According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Michael Karl Geilenfeld, 73, most recently of Littleton, founded St. Joseph’s Home for Boys — a home for orphaned, impoverished, and otherwise vulnerable children in Haiti — in 1985 and operated it for more than two decades. During this time, Geilenfeld repeatedly traveled from the United States to Haiti, where he sexually abused the boys entrusted to his care.

The jury convicted Geilenfeld of one count of traveling in foreign commerce for the purpose of engaging in illicit sexual conduct and six counts of engaging in illicit sexual conduct in a foreign place, between 2005 and 2010. Each of the six counts of engaging in illicit sexual conduct in a foreign place relates to a particular victim who was a child at the time of the offense. Each of the six victims testified about the sexual abuse they suffered at the hands of Geilenfeld, as did four other victims who were not the subject of the charged offenses. Geilenfeld is scheduled to be sentenced on May 5 and faces a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison on each of the seven total counts. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations Miami and the FBI Miami Field Office investigated the case.

Trial Attorneys Jessica L. Urban and Eduardo Palomo of the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS) and Assistant U.S. Attorney Lacee Monk for the Southern District of Florida are prosecuting the case.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and CEOS, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, visit www.justice.gov/psc.

Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division

“Today the Department of Justice determined that multiple layers of removal restrictions shielding administrative law judges (ALJs) are unconstitutional.

Unelected and constitutionally unaccountable ALJs have exercised immense power for far too long. In accordance with Supreme Court precedent, the Department is restoring constitutional accountability so that Executive Branch officials answer to the President and to the people.”

Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division

Last night, extensive bilateral cooperation between the United States and Mexico resulted in the Mexico Attorney General’s Office “Fiscalía General de la República” (FGR) conducting a significant enforcement operation to dismantle a prolific transnational alien smuggling organization operating in Juarez, Chihuahua, along the U.S.-Mexico border.

The targeted alien smuggling organization, a group based in Juarez, Mexico, utilizes smuggling corridors centered in the Anapra, Chihuahua / Santa Teresa, New Mexico area, employs Mexican nationals, many of whom are current and former members of various Mexico-based cartels, and is alleged to be responsible for illegally smuggling large numbers of individuals, including children, from Central America into El Paso, Texas. The criminal organization is also alleged to have kidnapped aliens seeking to enter the United States illegally and extorted their families for money before completing their smuggling journey. The enforcement operation included the execution of two arrest warrants in Mexico for alleged alien smugglers Brian Alan Torres Gonzalez and Soledad Morales Nava. Torres and Morales are Mexican citizens and will be prosecuted in Mexico in part with evidence provided by the United States.

“On her first day in office, the Attorney General directed the Department of Justice to prioritize efforts to achieve the total elimination of cartels and transnational criminal organizations, and empowered Joint Task Force Alpha (JTFA) to increase their contributions to this fight,” said Supervisory Official Antoinette T. Bacon of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “Today’s action by Mexican authorities is the latest example of how JTFA provides critical contributions to marshal the investigative and prosecutorial resources of the Department, and its law enforcement partners, to target human smugglers and enhance coordination in transnational law enforcement efforts to better combat these criminal organizations.”

U.S. authorities provided assistance to the Mexico Attorney General’s Office through coordination under JTFA, which, since its creation in 2021, has marshalled the investigative and prosecutorial resources of the Department of Justice, in partnership with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), to enhance U.S. enforcement efforts against the most prolific and dangerous human smuggling and trafficking groups operating in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Colombia, and Panama. Attorney General Pamela Bondi has elevated JTFA to the Office of the Attorney General, to be jointly supervised by the Office of the Deputy Attorney General. The task force focuses on disrupting and dismantling smuggling and trafficking networks that abuse, exploit, and endanger migrants, pose national security threats, or are involved in organized crime. JTFA comprises detailees from U.S. Attorneys’ Offices along the border, along with dedicated prosecutor support by numerous components of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, led by the Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section (HRSP) and supported by the Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section; the Office of Prosecutorial Development, Assistance and Training; the Narcotic and Dangerous Drug Section; the Office of Enforcement Operations; the Office of International Affairs; and the Violent Crime and Racketeering Section. JTFA also relies on substantial law enforcement investment from DHS, FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and other partners. To date, JTFA’s work has resulted in more than 350 domestic and international arrests of leaders, organizers, and significant facilitators of human smuggling; more than 300 U.S. convictions; more than 245 defendants sentenced, including significant jail sentences imposed; and substantial seizures and forfeitures of assets and contraband including millions of dollars in cash, real property, vehicles, firearms and ammunition, and drugs.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations (ICE HSI) El Paso assisted foreign investigative efforts in the United States, working in concert with the U.S. Border Patrol. Support from ICE HSI-Mexico City was critical in providing coordination between American and Mexican law enforcement agencies. The Justice Department — including the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas in El Paso, HRSP, and the Office of the Judicial Attache in Mexico City — provided significant assistance in this matter.