United States v. López-Díaz

794 F.3d 106
CourtCourt of Appeals for the First Circuit
DecidedJuly 13, 2015
DocketNos. 13-2113, 13-2118
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 794 F.3d 106 (United States v. López-Díaz) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the First Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. López-Díaz, 794 F.3d 106 (1st Cir. 2015).

Opinion

KAYATTA, Circuit Judge.

These consolidated appeals present a rare example of a trial record that lacks sufficient evidence to support a guilty verdict returned by a jury. Carlos López-Díaz (“Carlos”), a dentist, operated a mobile dental clinic in Puerto Rico.1 His brother, José López-Díaz (“José”), is a medical doctor who billed Medicare for services to Carlos’s patients that José never provided. The jury convicted José of health-care fraud, conspiracy to commit [109]*109health-care fraud, and aggravated identity-theft for using personal information gathered from Carlos’s patients. Based on the fact that Carlos gave José access to his patient billing information while knowing that José never treated, or even saw, any of the patients, the government also obtained a verdict against Carlos on the conspiracy and aggravated identity theft charges. While we find no error in José’s convictions, we reverse the verdict against Carlos because the prosecution did not present enough evidence to support his convictions without undue speculation.

I. Background

We limit our summary here to the basic contours of the health-care fraud scheme and proceedings below, reserving a fuller exposition of the relevant facts in the proper light for our discussion of particular issues. See United States v. Flores-Rivera, 787 F.3d 1, 9 (1st Cir.2015).

Between January 2006 and July 2011, José submitted 10,231 claims for reimbursement to Medicare, totaling approximately $3,500,000, of which Medicare actually paid about $700,000. He submitted the claims using Health Insurance Claim Form 1500 (“CMS 1500 Form”), a form used for Medicare billing by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”), which administers the Medicare program. As it turns out, José never provided any of the medical procedures for which he sought reimbursement. In some instances, he claimed to have provided services to Medicare beneficiaries who were deceased. He also repeatedly billed for the same unusual procedures. José filed 1,177 claims (far more than anyone else in Puer-to Rico) for a procedure typically performed by urologists, and more than half of those claimed urological procedures were for female patients, even though the procedure can be performed on male patients only.

In order to submit those false claims, José needed the Medicare beneficiaries’ identifying and health coverage information. His principal sources were the patient records of his brother Carlos, a licensed dentist. Beginning sometime in 2007, Carlos operated a mobile dental clinic — essentially, a large trailer with three dental chairs and necessary equipment— to provide dental services to underserved patients at nursing homes, mental health residential facilities, and schools. Carlos employed a coordinator to visit potential facilities, market the clinic, schedule visits, and collect patient medical histories, consent and release forms, and health coverage information before the mobile clinic visited each facility. Carlos also employed two dental assistants.

José never treated or even saw any of Carlos’s patients. Rather, José testified that Carlos gave him access to dental patient information as part of a safety protocol developed by the brothers after one of Carlos’s elderly patients suffered a heart attack or stroke in the mobile clinic in late 2007, an event confirmed by the director of the stricken patient’s nursing home. Two of the witnesses called by the government, Leslie Williams-Nieves (“Williams”) and Nahír Rodríguez-Candelario (“Rodrí-guez”), explained that they were told that a regulation enacted by the Puerto Rico State Department required Carlos to have his patients medically evaluated and to use a medical consultant. When asked about this regulation, José said that he could not recall its name.2 Pursuant to the protocol, José paid Carlos’s dental assistants to take and record vital signs of dental patients [110]*110before Carlos treated them, with José available for phone consultations, and José would later review the patient files, vital signs, and medical histories to see that Carlos’s staff was acting properly.3 The parties agree that José did indeed pay the dental assistants to take and record patient vital signs, and the actual patient records show that José did review, or at least initial, that information in each record. According to José’s testimony, “[t]here are several formulas through which the physician can be paid for these services.”

José also gathered from Carlos’s patiént records the personal identifying information needed to bill Medicare. José used that information to complete and submit CMS 1500 Forms for medical procedures that he never performed on those patients. José paid Williams4 and Rodriguez,5 employees of his wife’s pediatric clinic, to complete his CMS 1500 Forms using information gleaned from Carlos’s patient files. Williams and Rodriguez also did separate billing and data entry work part-time for Carlos. Williams and Rodriguez testified that they filled out José’s CMS 1500 Forms either at their own homes or at José’s home office, and never in Carlos’s presence or at his office. The government stipulated that Carlos did not sign or prepare any of José’s CMS 1500 Forms, and that Carlos’s name did not appear on those forms.

Investigators eventually caught on to José’s falsified bills, and a grand jury indicted José, Carlos, Williams, Rodriguez, and others for conspiracy to commit health-care fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1849 (count one) and health-care fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1347 (counts ten through thirty), and José and Carlos for aggravated identity theft in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1028A(a)(l) (counts thirty-one through thirty-five). All of the defendants except for Carlos were also indicted for additional counts of health-care fraud (counts two through nine).6 After a fifteen-day trial, the jury convicted José of all counts.7 The jury also convicted Carlos of the conspiracy and aggravated identity theft counts, but acquitted him of the substantive health-care fraud counts. The district court sentenced José to a total of 121 months in prison. Carlos received a total prison sentence of thirty-six months and a day. Carlos and José timely filed separate appeals challenging their convictions.8

[111]*111II. Carlos’s Insufficiency of the Evidence Claim

We turn first to Carlos’s appeal from the order denying his motion -for acquittal based on insufficient evidence to convict. See Fed.R.Crim.P. 29. We review de novo the denial of a Rule 29 motion for acquittal, asking whether a reasonable jury could find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. United States v. Burgos-Montes, 786 F.3d 92, 112 (1st Cir.2015). In assessing a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence, we “examine the evidence, together with all inferences that may be reasonably drawn from it, in the light most favorable to the prosecution.” United States v. Andújar,

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Bluebook (online)
794 F.3d 106, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-lopez-diaz-ca1-2015.