WASHINGTON – The owner and operator of HME Solutions Inc., dba Lifecare Medical, a licensed pharmaceutical wholesale company in Miami, has pleaded guilty to defrauding the Medicare program of $5.3 million in an HIV-infusion fraud scheme.

Harold Sio pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering, according to U.S. Attorney R. Alexander Acosta of the Southern District of Florida.

At the plea hearing, between August 2004 and November 2006, Sio conspired with Juan A. Marrero and Orlando Pascual Jr., the owners of Medcore Group LLC, to commit healthcare fraud and launder the proceeds.

Sio also admitted that he supplied pharmaceuticals to Marrero and Pascual for the purpose of committing Medicare fraud. He accepted payment from Marrero and Pascual, and then returned cash to them so that it could ultimately be used to pay kickbacks to patients.

Marrero and Pascual pleaded guilty in January 2009 to Medicare fraud and are scheduled for sentencing on April 3, 2009. Sio is scheduled to be sentenced on March 24, 2009.

In pleading guilty, Marrero and Pascual both admitted that they falsely billed Medicare more than $5.3 million for unnecessary infusion treatments.

Marrero and Pascual acknowledged that clinic employees intentionally manipulated patients' blood samples to make the patients' need for treatment appear legitimate, when in fact it was not, as well as to make the patients' medical files appear legitimate.

According to court documents, physicians, a physician's assistant and phlebotomists, were used by Marrero and Pascual to help facilitate the scheme.

The case was brought as part of the Medicare Fraud Strike Force, supervised by the Criminal Division's Fraud Section and U.S. Attorney Acosta of the Southern District of Florida.