A Broward County man was convicted at trial this week of charges that could lead to a maximum federal prison sentence of 125 years for his role in an $11 million Medicare fraud conspiracy.
Christian Cruz, 45, of Pompano Beach, was a nursing assistant and the manager and registered agent of a Fort Lauderdale-based company called Brace Yourself MD that supplied durable medical equipment, according to an indictment. His co-defendant Jorge Luis Almansa, who federal prosecutors said remains at large, was registered with the company as a beneficial owner.
Beginning in 2020, Cruz and his co-defendant and others paid kickbacks and bribes to marketers who used call centers to recruit Medicare beneficiaries for medical equipment they did not need, using “aggressive, deceptive, and misleading tactics,” according to the indictment.
After obtaining signed doctors’ orders, they shipped orthotic braces to beneficiaries across the country, including people who did not request the equipment or need it, and submitted claims to Medicare, federal prosecutors said in a news release Thursday.
The marketers who were paid kickbacks and bribes used telemedicine companies in order to obtain doctors’ orders, many of which were written by doctors who did not have an existing relationship with the beneficiaries. In other instances, marketers generated orders that included electronic signatures of the beneficiary’s doctor without the doctor’s permission, the indictment said.
Between September 2020 and June 2024, Brace Yourself submitted $11.4 million worth of claims to Medicare, and the company received $3.7 million in its corporate bank account, the indictment said. Tens of thousands of dollars were transferred from the account to personal accounts of Cruz and Almansa.
Numerous email complaints about patients receiving unnecessary equipment were included as evidence at trial, court records show.
At least 11 similar complaints about the company were filed with the Better Business Bureau in 2023 and 2024, the agency’s records show. In February 2023, a relative caring for his or her 93-year-old mother with dementia discovered in a financial statement that the woman was being billed for more than $2,000 for four braces that she had no knowledge of, according to the BBB complaint. Another complaint said a woman in a wheelchair received braces from the company but did not order them and can’t use them due to her mobility issues.
Cruz throughout 2022 and 2023 made several withdrawals from his personal bank account just under the $10,000 threshold that requires banks to report cash transactions, the indictment shows.
Cruz stated he was the sole owner and operator of Brace Yourself despite sharing ownership in the company with his co-conspirator, who is a convicted felon. Federal prosecutors said Medicare would not have allowed the company to enroll with the program had the co-conspirator been known.
The trial began Jan. 12, and the jury reached its verdict Wednesday, federal court records show. Cruz was found guilty of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and wire fraud, health care fraud, conspiracy to defraud the United States and to make false statements relating to health care matters and three counts of structuring.
A sentencing hearing is scheduled for April 13. Federal prosecutors said Cruz faces a maximum penalty of 125 years in prison.