MIAMI, FL — A cosmetic surgeon was convicted of manslaughter after a lounge singer bled to death during a May 1992 operation to tighten his tummy and enlarge his penis.

Claudio Martell, 47, went to Samitier's clinic for surgery to trim his double chin, chubby cheeks and pot belly, and also asked for a penile enlargement as a surprise for his wife. Samitier used a controversial process in which fat removed from elsewhere in the body is used to plump up the penis.

Prosecutors argued that Samitier should not have accepted Martell as a patient because the singer had an enlarged heart and a pacemaker and took blood thinners. They said Samitier could not control Martell's bleeding, was unequipped to respond when Martell's heart stopped beating, and waited 30 hours before calling paramedics.

Copyright © Reuters, June 2, 1994

Successful investigation into the death of four homeless woman who were savagely beaten and set on fire by serial murderer Francisco Del Junco. 

MIAMI - On June 3, 1996, Francisco, a dishwasher in Dan Marino's American Sports Bar and Grill in the tony Coconut Grove neighborhood of Miami, confessed to killing and setting on fire four females.

Police were lead to Del Junco by a planned investigative effort.  Once authorities had Del Junco in custody they just talked to him -- about his childhood in Cuba, his likes and dislikes. The conversation spanned over a weekend and took interrogators and the suspected serial killer to picturesque Key Biscayne.  There, looking across the aquamarine of Biscayne Bay, the 38-year-old Del Junco-- a loner who was well-liked at work but kept his distance from the few family members he had in Miami-- confessed to killing and torching four women. Police then took him to the scene of each murder, where he acted out the details of each killing.

Del Junco was charged with the slayings of Vida Hicks 43, Diane Helms 44, Cheryl Lee Ray, 37, and Janice Cox, 37. The victims were killed between August 1995 and March 1996 and were found beaten, burned and partially clothed in or near Miami's inner city. They were all black, but Del Junco said his killing spree was not racially motivated.

This case was featured on A&E's Cold Case Files and can be viewed by logging on to YouTube.com, Cold Case 080 parts 1-5.

Founding member of a Statewide investigative Task Force looking into the diversion of pharmaceutical drugs paid for by the Medicaid program.  The task force consisting of the Office of Statewide Prosecution, Florida Department of Law Enforcement, US Food & Drug Administration, Miami-Dade Police Department, Department of Health and the Medicaid Fraud Control Unt, successfully investigated and arrested over 100 individuals for racketeering, money laundering, Medicaid fraud, and the unlawful trafficking of pharmaceutical drugs throughout the United States.  Recovered millions of dollars of Medicaid funds which were returned to the program.

"Katherine Eban's hard-hitting exploration of America's secret ring of drug counterfeiters takes us to Florida, where tireless investigators follow the trail of medicine stolen in a seemingly minor break-in as it funnels into a sprawling national network of drug polluters. Their pursuit stretches from a strip joint in South Miami to the halls of Congress as they battle entrenched political interests and uncover an increasing threat to America's health."

Dangerous Doses can be purchased at Amazon.com and other fine bookstores.

R. Alexander Acosta, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Jonathan I. Solomon, Special Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Miami Field Office, Christopher B. Dennis, Special Agent in Charge, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General, and Bill McCollum, Attorney General of the State of Florida, announced today that Miguel Almanza, formerly of Hialeah, FL, pled guilty in connection with a $56.7 million Medicare fraud scheme.

According to the government's factual proffer, defendant Miguel Almanza operated and controlled thirteen durable medical equipment ("DME") companies, and three medical clinics located in Miami-Dade and Hillsborough Counties. Using these thirteen companies, Almanza and his co-conspirators submitted nearly $57 million of false claims to Medicare for medical equipment, prescription medications, and outpatient medical services. See Attachment A for list of companies.

Almanza and his partners concealed their control of these DME companies and medical clinics by recruiting "nominee" or "straw owners," who were typically paid a percentage of the fraud proceeds to sign the necessary corporate records and Medicare applications. Notably, Almanza often recruited family members or recent immigrants from his hometown of Moron, Cuba, to serve as the nominee owners of his DME companies.

To execute the scheme, Almanza purchased the identities of various Medicare beneficiaries in Miami-Dade County, including their driver's licenses, Medicare cards, and other identification documents. Almanza would then use the patients' Medicare numbers to submit fraudulent claims to Medicare for a wide variety of high-priced medical equipment, including nebulizers, oxygen concentrators, powered air mattresses, and wheelchairs. During the early years of the conspiracy, Almanza and his partners paid monthly cash kickbacks to these "professional patients." The kickbacks were paid so that the patients would not report the false claims to Medicare. Over time, the scheme changed because Almanza and his partners found it cumbersome to pay kickbacks to dozens of patients. Consequently, Almanza and his partners began to purchase stolen patient identities from patient recruiters and billing companies.

Once Medicare paid the false claims, Almanza and his partners implemented complex schemes to launder the fraud proceeds and conceal their ultimate destination. In one version of the scheme, Almanza and his partners would distribute pre-signed corporate checks, often for amounts just under $10,000, to a broad network of so-called "check cashers." The "check cashers" would cash the checks at local banks throughout Miami-Dade County, often visiting numerous bank branches within one day so as to avoid raising red flags. The "check cashers" would keep a commission, typically about 10%, and give the remaining proceeds to Almanza and his co-conspirators.

Under a second laundering method, Almanza and his partners recruited nominee owners to open various sham corporations, including construction companies and investment firms. The Medicare fraud proceeds were deposited into the bank accounts of the sham corporations, and then later distributed to Almanza and his partners. Almanza used the fraud proceeds to purchase a home, luxury cars, and to finance other lavish personal expenditures. Almanza also used the funds for gambling at various South Florida casinos, where he often spent more than $10,000 per night.

Almanza faces a maximum term of ten years' imprisonment for the Medicare conspiracy, and five years' imprisonment for making false claims upon the United States.

Mr. Acosta commended the investigative efforts of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General, and the Office of the Attorney General of Florida, Medicaid Fraud Control Unit. This case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Ryan Stumphauzer.

TALLAHASSEE, FL – Attorney General Bill McCollum today announced that a Miami-Dade man has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for his involvement in a prescription drug fraud scheme. Jose Antonio Grillo previously pleaded guilty to orchestrating a scheme through which he purchased prescription medications and replaced the drugs’ labels with counterfeited labels, making the drugs appear to be of a stronger concentration, therefore worth more on the black market. Grillo was prosecuted by the Attorney General’s Office of Statewide Prosecution.

Grillo, 50, was initially arrested in Miami based on an indictment issued by a Statewide Grand Jury in July 2003. Investigators discovered that Grillo purchased pharmaceuticals over a two-year period of time and altered their labels, then sold the drugs to illegal wholesalers at an enormous profit. By the time his scheme was discovered, nearly 11,000 boxes, or 50,000 doses had been sold into the stream of commerce and had to be recalled. Much of the medicine was intended for treatment of cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy and patients who had undergone organ transplants. The investigation was a joint effort by the Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the Miami-Dade Police Department, and the Florida Department of Health’s Bureau of Pharmacy Services.

Grillo pleaded guilty earlier this month to the charges of organized scheme to defraud, conspiracy to commit racketeering, numerous charges of buying and selling pharmaceutical products without a license, product tampering, and selling counterfeit products. He was sentenced by the Honorable Marisa Tinkler-Mendez of Eleventh Judicial Circuit. Grillo has been in Miami-Dade County Jail since his arrest in 2003.

On March 5, 1974 -- the same day that rival motorcycle clubs roared through suburban Miami in celebration of their annual "Bike Week" -- seventeen-year-old Amy Billig left home to meet a friend for lunch ... and vanished. Several days later, Amy's frantic mother, Susan Billig, received an anonymous phone call saying that her daughter had been carried off by one of the biker gangs. And so began Susan's harrowing and extraordinary twenty-five-year search for her lost child -- an odyssey that led a desperate parent into the seedy heart of a dangerous subculture built on drugs, rebellion, brutality, and sex; a relentless hunt for the truth that showed her the best side of humanity...and the very worst.

The disappearance of Amy Billig in March 1974 made headlines throughout the United States.  Through an investigative effort that spanned the entire country, Investigator Calvar, as a member of the City of Miami Police Department, Cold Case Squad, resurected the investigation in 1993, into Amy's disappearance.  The investigation concluded with a dying declaration by Paul Branch to what really happened that fateful day in 1974.  Investigator Calvar was able to provide Amy's mother, Susan Billig with some closure to this horrific case.

Susan Billing published the book Without A Trace: The Disappearance of Amy Billig with Greg Aunapu in 2001.  This case was also profiled on America's Most Wanted.