2 charged in patient brokering

By JEFF TESTERMAN

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 6, 2000

TAMPA -- Two former health care executives have been charged in federal court with scheming to pay kickbacks to an Ohio probation officer for the referral of patients to medical facilities in the Tampa Bay area.

William R. DeMaria and Ronald W. Greenfield, each accused of a single count of mail fraud, were principals in Progressive Health Care, a Morganville, N.J., company which supplied patients to the Sun Coast Hospital in Largo, The Manors in Tarpon Springs and Heritage Beverly Hills Hospital in Citrus County.

The two businessmen are among 40 defendants now charged in a six-year grand jury investigation into illegal patient brokering. The investigation was sparked by a St. Petersburg Times series entitled "The Patient Pipeline." The series chronicled stories of patients lured into inappropriate or unnecessary treatment by brokers who collected up to $3,000 a head for referrals.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Tampa on Monday also unsealed a 62-count indictment charging three Florida corporations and six people with conspiracy to pay or accept kickbacks for patients placed into treatment in community mental health centers in Polk and Hardee counties.

The latest indictments represent the effort by federal prosecutors to pursue brokers who abandoned conventional mental health hospitals during the grand jury inquiry and instead turned to brokering at lower-profile partial hospitalization programs.

"We're very proud of this," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Gary Montilla. "We've chased the brokers out of the in-patient business and we've stayed hot on their heels as they've gone into the community mental health centers."

Charged with paying kickbacks was James Michael Norton, 49, of Winter Haven, the owner of the Auburndale Health Care Institute in Polk County and the Inn at Bowling Green in Hardee County, two mental health centers which took brokered patients. Norton faces a maximum sentence of 105 years in prison and a fine of $5.25-million.

Also accused of paying kickbacks was Norton associate Joann Summerlin, 56, of Zolfo Springs.

Charged with taking kickbacks for patient referrals to Norton's centers were Shelli Carlow, 44, of Davie; Warren Weitzman, 54, of Bethesda, Md.; John C. Shields, 72, of Memphis, Tenn., and Kent Fisher, 35, also of Memphis.

DeMaria and Greenfield, the businessmen accused of mail fraud, were charged by federal prosecutors in Ohio, and face maximum sentences of five years in prison and fines of $250,000.

Both men have pleaded guilty, but their plea agreements suggest they may still be charged with additional crimes by federal prosecutors in Florida.

DeMaria and Greenfield admit making $21,718 in secret payments in 1992 to the wife of a Niles, Ohio, probation officer in return for the officer's referral of substance abuse probationers to Florida treatment programs operated by DeMaria and Greenfield's companies. The patient brokering scandal in Niles has already resulted in the conviction of Municipal Judge Patrick V. Kerrigan, who admitted accepting free trips to Tampa for steering alcoholics and drug addicts into Florida treatment centers.

The bribes were paid to Kerrigan by Mark E. Novosel, one-time owner of both the Recovery Health Options treatment program in Niles and the Nova treatment program in Tarpon Springs. Novosel netted $30,000 for referring 22 patients to tax-paid treatment in Florida, court documents show.

Investigators in Ohio and Florida were joined in 1997 by New Jersey Medicaid fraud officials, who seized the records of eight treatment centers and three other companies linked to DeMaria.

Law enforcement officials have also said DeMaria's business partners included Lawrence "Sonny" Aliseo, convicted of gambling violations in New Jersey in 1995 and described by prosecutors as part of a bookmaking syndicate connected to the five organized crime families of New York.

Greenfield served time for a second-degree murder conviction stemming from the 1973 slaying of a University of Virginia student.

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