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Businessman gets seven years for fraud
By GRAHAM BRINK, Times Staff Writer
TAMPA -- A businessman who helped lead an organization that bilked $14-million from government health care programs received seven years in prison on Tuesday. Barry D. Haught told the judge that he had made mistakes, and asked for probation and a suspended sentence. U.S. District Judge James Whittemore said Haught did not deserve only probation. "I could not in good conscience even consider it," he said. "You call them mistakes. I call them fraud, extensive fraud," Whittemore said. Instead of facing trial, Haught agreed last year to plead guilty to two federal counts that included conspiracy to commit Medicare and Medicaid fraud. He also agreed to pay millions of dollars in restitution and forfeit millions in assets, including property and money from bank accounts and brokerage houses. The judge, however, noted that most of the that money is likely gone and unable to be retrieved. According to court documents, Haught, 49, helped organize the scam in the mid-1990s. Salesmen would sweep through poor neighborhoods in Florida and in other states asking residents if they wanted equipment such as hospital beds or pressurized mattresses, even if they didn't have a need for the equipment. The companies would then submit to the government paperwork that included false diagnoses to justify the sales. Sometimes they forged doctors' signatures or paid kickbacks to doctors to sign the fraudulent paperwork, court documents say. The companies brought in about $26-million from June 1995 until September 1998, of which about $14-million was from fraudulent claims. Court documents state Haught laundered about $5 million of that amount in off-shore bank accounts, said prosecutor Terry Zitek. Even when told by a federal judge in 1998 to stop the activities, Haught and others persisted in submitting $400,000 more in fraudulent claims, Zitek said. At the hearing Tuesday, Haught apologized to his family, the community, the judge and God. He started crying as he told the judge that he wanted to see his 3-month-old grandson take his first steps. "Please allow me the opportunity to be a benefit to society," he said. "Not a burden." Judge Whittemore responded by saying the evidence showed a "callous indifference to the laws of our land." Whittemore sentenced Haught to the mid-range of the guidelines. The judge allowed Haught to remain free and report to the appropriate prison at a date to be determined by the U.S. Marshals Service. Several other defendants in the cases related to the scams have pleaded guilty. A few have received prison sentences or probation. Several others have yet to be sentenced. -- Graham Brink can be reached at (813) 266-3365 or brink@sptimes.com
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