Latest news with #Miami-based
Yahoo
15 hours ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Trump commutes sentence of Miami healthcare exec convicted of Medicare fraud
A South Florida man sentenced to 50 years in prison for ripping off tens of millions of dollars from Medicare was among the more than two dozen people whom President Donald Trump granted clemency to this week. Lawrence Duran — the former co-owner of American Therapeutic Corp., a Miami-based company that ran seven healthcare clinics between South Florida and Orlando — pleaded guilty in May 2011 to multiple felonies, including defrauding Medicare, healthcare fraud and money laundering. A judge sentenced Duran, now 63, to the longest prison term in history for Medicare fraud in September 2016. Trump issued Duran's commutation on Wednesday. Duran and his girlfriend, Marianella Valera, the co-owner of the company and one of its therapists, filed 866,000 false claims with Medicare and received more than $87 million from their scheme, according to court records. Their case was part of a much larger probe that included 22 other defendants, including senior company employees, psychiatrists and patient recruiters. In all, the scheme involved $200 million in false billings. At the time, it was the nation's largest Medicare therapy rip-off scam in history. READ MORE: Trump pardons 2 Florida divers who freed 19 sharks and a giant grouper Valera, now 54, was sentenced to 35 years in prison. Her sentence was reduced to 15 years, and she was released from custody in March 2020, federal Bureau of Prison records show. The fraud involved billing Medicare for group mental-health sessions that were either not needed or not provided to patients. The patients at the clinics were not capable of feeding themselves, unable to independently use the bathroom and lacked the mental capacity to respond to counseling, federal prosecutors said at the time. This meant they likely weren't even eligible for the treatment for which the company was billing Medicare, according to prosecutors. Duran is the second defendant in the case to be spared by Trump. In 2020 in his first term, Trump commuted the 35-year sentence of Judith Negron. A jury convicted her on 24 counts of conspiracy, fraud, paying kickbacks and money laundering in collaboration with Duran and Valera in August 2011. Negron, now 54, was vice president of an American Therapeutic Corp.. subsidiary called MedLink Professional Management Group, which federal prosecutors said was established with the sole purpose of laundering $83 million in Medicare payments to Duran, Valera, employees and others who participated in the scheme for more than 10 years. Duran and Valera lived in a Miami bayfront condo and tooled around in a Maserati. Miami Herald Staff Writer Jay Weaver contributed to this report.
Straits Times
16 hours ago
- Sport
- Straits Times
‘You'll never make it' – Aryna Sabalenka slams ‘brutal' youth coaches
PARIS – World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka may be a three-time Grand Slam winner, but the Belarusian has revealed how she had been berated and told she would not succeed by coaches as a youngster. On May 30, top-seeded Sabalenka eased into the French Open last 16 with a 6-2, 6-3 win over Serbia's Olga Danilovic on Court Philippe Chatrier. And the 27-year-old Miami-based player spoke afterwards of the cultural difference of the coaching system in Eastern Europe. 'I've always been quite motivated and they didn't have to push me,' Sabalenka said. 'But I have heard a lot saying I'm not smart enough, that I'm stupid, and I'll never make it, and I don't have anything to make it to the top. 'I guess I want to send a quick message to them to quit their job, because honestly, I think they know nothing and they better quit just to save other players.' The Minsk native won back-to-back Australian Open titles in 2023 and 2024 and the US Open last season. She brushed aside 34th-ranked Danilovic in 79 minutes and next plays 16th-seeded American Amanda Anisimova on June 1 for a place in the quarter-finals at Roland Garros. The Belarusian also said she felt lucky with her current coaching team. 'Off court it is important to surround yourself with the right people and have fun with your crew and that's what I'm doing,' she said. 'I am really grateful to have all of them on my team, we are like family.' In contrast, Madrid Open winner Sabalenka has spoken this week about 'the environment and in the history of European countries, we are much tougher'. 'I definitely think that the environment we have in our countries, which is like very tough and coaches are very brutal, there is nothing nice about the way they work with their players, they (are) quite rude,' she said. 'I think that's why maybe our mentality is much stronger, but also, the same time, they kind of like broke so many players because of that aggressive mindset. 'I think in Europe and the States, the environment is much healthier.' In Paris, Sabalenka refuses to consider herself a favourite in a tournament where she has never advanced past the semi-finals. 'Let's just leave it (the pressure) on Iga (Swiatek) since she won it, what, three times in a row, really, right? Let's just... I will just leave it for her,' she added. Anisimova leads Sabalenka 5-2 in previous meetings. The American is competing in her seventh French Open, having an impressive run to the semi-finals six years ago. She beat Sabalenka in straight sets in the second round in 2019. 'When I first got here, I was getting some flashbacks and good memories,' said Anisimova, who got past 22nd-seeded Dane Clara Tauson 7-6 (7-4), 6-4 in the third round. 'Obviously (she's) one of the best right now. She's No. 1. I really enjoy the fight and the challenge that she brings on,' added the 23-year-old. AFP Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Miami Herald
21 hours ago
- Business
- Miami Herald
Trump commutes sentence of Miami healthcare exec convicted of Medicare fraud
A South Florida man sentenced to 50 years in prison for ripping off tens of millions of dollars from Medicare was among the more than two dozen people whom President Donald Trump granted clemency to this week. Lawrence Duran — the former co-owner of American Therapeutic Corp., a Miami-based company that ran seven healthcare clinics between South Florida and Orlando — pleaded guilty in May 2011 to multiple felonies, including defrauding Medicare, healthcare fraud and money laundering. A judge sentenced Duran, now 63, to the longest prison term in history for Medicare fraud in September 2016. Trump issued Duran's commutation on Wednesday. Duran and his girlfriend, Marianella Valera, the co-owner of the company and one of its therapists, filed 866,000 false claims with Medicare and received more than $87 million from their scheme, according to court records. Their case was part of a much larger probe that included 22 other defendants, including senior company employees, psychiatrists and patient recruiters. In all, the scheme involved $200 million in false billings. At the time, it was the nation's largest Medicare therapy rip-off scam in history. READ MORE: Trump pardons 2 Florida divers who freed 19 sharks and a giant grouper Valera, now 54, was sentenced to 35 years in prison. Her sentence was reduced to 15 years, and she was released from custody in March 2020, federal Bureau of Prison records show. The fraud involved billing Medicare for group mental-health sessions that were either not needed or not provided to patients. The patients at the clinics were not capable of feeding themselves, unable to independently use the bathroom and lacked the mental capacity to respond to counseling, federal prosecutors said at the time. This meant they likely weren't even eligible for the treatment for which the company was billing Medicare, according to prosecutors. Duran is the second defendant in the case to be spared by Trump. In 2020 in his first term, Trump commuted the 35-year sentence of Judith Negron. A jury convicted her on 24 counts of conspiracy, fraud, paying kickbacks and money laundering in collaboration with Duran and Valera in August 2011. Negron, now 54, was vice president of an American Therapeutic Corp.. subsidiary called MedLink Professional Management Group, which federal prosecutors said was established with the sole purpose of laundering $83 million in Medicare payments to Duran, Valera, employees and others who participated in the scheme for more than 10 years. Duran and Valera lived in a Miami bayfront condo and tooled around in a Maserati. Miami Herald Staff Writer Jay Weaver contributed to this report.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Conduit, Palla raise cross-border capital
This story was originally published on Payments Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily Payments Dive newsletter. Conduit, which incorporates stablecoins into its cross-border payments network, closed on a $36 million haul from investors this week, the Boston-based company said in a Wednesday press release. The venture capital firms Dragonfly and Altos Ventures led the fundraising round. Palla, which also operates a cross-border payments platform, raised $14.5 million from Revolution Ventures, Y Combinator, Meta Fund and other investors, according to its Wednesday press release. The new funding for the startups, which both offer real-time payments, is expected to help each of them expand into new geographic markets and add more services, their separate press releases said. Cross-border payments are notoriously slow, complicated and expensive, but recent advances in digital payments are allowing a slew of nascent fintechs to offer alternative international payment tools. They aim to challenge legacy players in that arena, such as Swift, MoneyGram, PayPal and Western Union. Conduit 'seamlessly' integrates stablecoins, which are cryptocurrencies pegged to a stable value, with U.S. dollars and other countries' local currencies to offer businesses, the company said in its release. The business aims to be an alternative to Belgium-based Swift, the dominant cross-border payments system. Conduit is led by CEO Kirill Gertman, who is based in the Boston area, according to his LinkedIn profile. The company is also based in Boston and has raised a total of $53 million, said a Conduit spokesperson. The company was founded in 2021 and has about 100 clients, with support from 57 employees, the release said. While Conduit competes with Swift, short for the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, it also connects to that network, as well as other rails, including ACH and Fedwire, plus local currency systems in other countries. Currently, Conduit services are available in the U.K., as well as other parts of Europe, China, Hong Kong, Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Nigeria, and Kenya, among others. It expects to reach further into Asia and Mexico in the future, per the release. Miami-based Palla, which was founded a year earlier in 2020, has developed a clientele of some 30 financial institutions and fintech distribution partners that incorporate the startup's cross-border payments capabilities into their own offerings, per the press release. The company has raised about $15 million in total, a spokesperson for the startup said. Palla enables its partners to embed instant international payments into their own digital channels by way of APIs, white-label apps and other embedded features, the release said. The company aims to add more partners to its lineup before the end of the year, with plans to expand in Latin America, the Caribbean and beyond those regions. The company also expects to broaden existing payment pathways and open new ones for sending and receiving funds as it launches new product lines and money management tools. 'Our goal has always been to simplify and secure cross-border transfers, giving financial institutions the opportunity to make them faster, safer, and more user-friendly than ever before,' Palla CEO Enrique Perezalonso said in the release. 'This investment will accelerate our growth and further our mission to make international payments seamless and accessible to everyone.' Revolution Ventures, which led Palla's funding round, has poured funding into other noteworthy fintech firms, including Trust & Will, Revolution Money by American Express, Policygenius' Zinna, Rize by Fifth Third Bank and Hello Wallet by Morningstar, according to the investor's website. In addition to the capital infusion, Palla said David Golden, managing partner at Revolution Ventures, and Heidi Miller, former president of JPMorgan International, will join Palla's board of directors, according to the press release. The cross-border companies may face additional costs as they seek to expand. U.S. lawmakers are weighing whether to tax cross-border remittances. Last week, the House of Representatives passed a budget bill that would tax cross-border money transfers. The Senate hasn't voted on the bill yet, but fintech groups, including Financial Technology Association, American Fintech Council and Electronic Transactions Association, have already decried the legislation. Erreur lors de la récupération des données Connectez-vous pour accéder à votre portefeuille Erreur lors de la récupération des données Erreur lors de la récupération des données Erreur lors de la récupération des données Erreur lors de la récupération des données
Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Seacoast bets big on The Villages in $710.8M deal
This story was originally published on Banking Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily Banking Dive newsletter. Arguably Florida's most acquisitive bank is making a move on the state's largest retirement community. Seacoast Banking Corp. agreed to acquire Villages Bancorporation in a transaction worth $710.8 million that's expected to close in the fourth quarter, according to a Thursday press release. VBI, the parent company of Citizens First Bank, touts a deposit share of more than 50% in the metro area that includes The Villages, the 150,000-person community in central Florida. The deal comes just two weeks after Seacoast announced it had received approval from the Federal Reserve and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to buy Heartland Bancshares. That transaction, worth roughly $110 million and announced in February, is set to close July 11, Seacoast said this month. The VBI deal builds on Stuart-based Seacoast's strategy to expand in central Florida. Thursday's transaction would add 19 branches to Seacoast's brick-and-mortar footprint and boost its asset total by $4.1 billion, the bank said. Figuring in the Heartland deal, too, Seacoast will have $21 billion in assets, $17 billion in deposits and $12 billion in gross loans once the VBI transaction closes, it said. Seacoast CEO Charles Shaffer called the deal a 'rare partnership opportunity to continue the legacy of high quality service to the Villages community with a shared vision for the many years of growth that lay ahead.' Seacoast expects the transaction to be roughly 22% accretive to earnings per share in 2026. Its tangible book value dilution should be earned back in less than three years, the bank said. Under the deal, VBI shareholders can receive their choice of $1,000 in cash for each share they own, or 38.5 shares of Seacoast common stock. VBI shareholders alternately could opt for a mix of the two, such that they would get cash for 25% of the holdings and the remaining 75% would be exchanged for Seacoast stock. The deal's $710.8 million value stems from Seacoast's closing price from Wednesday of $24.91 per share, the bank said. 'Since its founding in 1992, VBI has been committed to providing the very best banking experience for our customers,' CEO Jay Bartholomew said in a statement Thursday. 'In partnership with Seacoast, we are positioned to further accelerate this commitment, creating a best-in-class banking experience supported by a great team of professionals.' Seacoast's history of acquisition stretches far back from 2025. The lender simultaneously announced two deals in 2021: for Sarasota-based Sabal Palm Bank and Melbourne-based Florida Business Bank. It followed that up in 2022 with a $168.3 million purchase of Miami-based Apollo Bank (which itself had earlier terminated a proposed tie-up with Suncoast Credit Union). Seacoast further cemented its Miami foothold in 2022 by acquiring Professional Bank for roughly $488.6 million.
