>>17029321
>>17028668
part 3 of 3
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/morselife-nursing-home-health-system-agrees-pay-175-million-settle-false-claims-act
Third, MorseLife’s CEO allegedly allowed the Vice Chairman of the MorseLife Health Systems Inc. Board and his brother to invite approximately 290 people to the vaccination clinic, none of whom lived or worked on the MorseLife campus and most of whom did not volunteer on MorseLife’s campus and had no prior affiliation with MorseLife. A significant number of these invitees were members of the same country club as the Vice Chairman and his brother, and some of the invitees flew to Florida just to get vaccinated at the clinic. As reflected in a MorseLife Foundation strategy document, “[t]his group was ‘recruited’ by [Vice Chairman and his brother] and owe allegiance to them at least as much as they owe it to us;” “[w]e allowed these people to be vaccinated mostly because [Vice Chairman and his brother] wanted us to;” “[t]hese prospects understand that and owe allegiance to [Vice Chairman and his brother] for arranging for them to get the vaccine;” and [w]e should use that allegiance to effectively get significant gifts from that group in a short amount of time.” The United States alleged that MorseLife falsely characterized donors and potential donors who had no previous affiliation with MorseLife, but were invited by the Foundation or the Vice Chairman and his brother, as “volunteers” for purposes of the LTC PPP.
Ultimately, the United States alleged that of 976 persons vaccinated at the Dec. 31, 2020, clinic, 567, or more than half, were ineligible to participate in the LTC PPP.
The resolution obtained in this matter was the result of a coordinated effort between the Justice Department’s Civil Division, Commercial Litigation Branch, Fraud Section, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida, with substantial assistance from HHS-OIG, the FBI and the CDC. This matter was handled by Civil Division Fraud Section Attorneys Andy Mao, Natalie A. Waites, Elizabeth J. Kappakas and Jessica Sievert, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Rosaline Chan for the Southern District of Florida.
On May 17, 2021, the Attorney General established the COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force to marshal the resources of the Department of Justice in partnership with agencies across government to enhance efforts to combat and prevent pandemic-related fraud. Run out of the Office of the Deputy Attorney General, the Task Force bolsters efforts to investigate and prosecute the most culpable domestic and international actors committing civil or criminal fraud and assists agencies tasked with administering relief programs to prevent fraud by, among other methods, augmenting and incorporating existing coordination mechanisms, identifying resources and techniques to uncover fraudulent actors and their schemes, and sharing and harnessing information and insights gained from prior enforcement efforts. For more information on the department’s response to the pandemic, please visit https://www.justice.gov/coronavirus.
Anyone with information about allegations of fraud involving COVID-19 can report it by calling the Department of Justice’s National Center for Disaster Fraud (NCDF) Hotline at 866-720-5721 or via the NCDF Web Complaint Form at https://www.justice.gov/disaster-fraud/ncdf-disaster-complaint-form.