Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida suspended a member of the Hialeah City Council after she was arrested and charged with eight counts of federal fraud.
The 37-year-old councilwoman Angelica Pacheco is charged with masterminding a $19.1 million healthcare fraud conspiracy.
Mayor of Hialeah Esteban Bovo stated on Tuesday, “I reiterate my disappointment in Mrs. Pacheco’s actions and hope to put this dark chapter for the City behind us.”
The allegations include Florida Life Recovery and Rehabilitation LLC, a Hialeah-based business that her husband, Daniel Pacheco, registered as active on March 20, 2017, and closed on August 31, 2022—the company specialized in outpatient drug and mental health facilities.
According to the indictment, Pacheco was a registered nurse, employee, and beneficial owner of Florida Life. Between July 2017 and August 2020, she consented to “defraud” private insurance companies to “unlawfully enrich” herself. She did this by “submitting and causing” fraudulent claims, accepting kickbacks and bribes, enabling a patient to “piggyback” on the insurance of another patient, and providing additional “scholarships” in exchange for a patient referring other people with insurance.
In the indictment, it is stated that Pacheco and her accomplices signed contracts with laboratory owners and reciprocal referral agreements with other affiliated substance abuse treatment centers. These agreements involved the recycling of patients between the various treatment centers, even if it was not medically necessary.
The indictment also claimed that Pacheco permitted drug combinations and dosages that occasionally seriously deviated from accepted medical practice to keep patients compliant and encourage them to visit and stay at Florida Life. These medications were meant to provide patients with an alternative to the euphoric effects of drugs or alcohol.
In addition, Pacheco is charged with invoicing for services rendered to patients who are not engaged in treatment at Florida Life and permitting treatments to be “so substandard that they failed to serve a treatment purpose.” She is accused of filing fraudulent business loan applications in connection with the COVID-19 epidemic in the federal prosecution against her.
According to the Miami Herald, Pacheco turned himself in and appeared before Magistrate Judge Lauren F. Louis on Thursday. According to documents, she is accused of two counts of wire fraud, five counts of healthcare fraud, and conspiracy to conduct wire fraud. Daniel Pacheco, her spouse, was not explicitly named in the indictment.
Before her detention, she posted a Spanish-language video on YouTube titled “The Tireless Fight In Search of Justice Has Consequences,” in which she claimed that Hialeah Mayor Esteban Bovo had intimidated her and held “the Hialeah administration” accountable for all of her misfortunes. The film featured excerpts from council sessions demonstrating their hostility toward one another.
The woman on the video remarked in Spanish, “They are trying to figure out how to get rid of me.” Bovo said that the alleged offenses were “not related nor linked” to “her capacity as an elected official” in remarks made public on X on Thursday in both Spanish and English.
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