Why did these Florida doctors lose licenses? Fraud, sex assault allegations among reasons
Three medical doctors convicted of criminal charges and one still facing criminal charges are among the six who have had their licenses revoked in August by Florida’s Board of Medicine.
In alphabetical order...
Kathleen Cullen, Seminole
Cullen was also licensed in Alabama. She was put on probation there on Feb. 24, 2021, after the Medical Licensure Commission of Alabama reprimanded her and fined her $10,000 for letting a nurse handle the telemedicine services she should have been handling. The commission also wondered that there might be healthcare fraud involving Cullen and Bronson Medical, and subpoenaed records to investigate.
“However, neither Dr. Cullen nor Bronson Medical were able to access or produce any records prior to the hearing,” the commission wrote. “The Commission suspects that these omissions were intentional but, without the records, the Commission is not reasonably satisfied that substantial evidence exists to prove whether Dr. Cullen committed fraud herself, or whether she was the unwitting accessory to fraud by Bronson Medical.”
Cullen didn’t pay the $10,000 fine nor did she complete a medical ethics course in the next six months. So, on Oct. 27, 2021, Alabama revoked Cullen’s license that she’d held since July 24, 2013.
After Alabama’s action, Florida revoked Cullen’s license, which she’d held since 1996, on Aug. 12.
READ MORE: Doctors from Miami to Pace accused of sexual assault, drug dealing, deadly surgery
Raul Davila Correa, Fort Myers
Davila faces two counts of battery and one count of sexual battery in Lee County criminal court, the sexual battery charge being the one that prompted the emergency suspension order (ESO) from the state surgeon general on Oct. 7, 2021. An administrative complaint was filed by the Florida Department of Health on Oct. 26 and Davila Correa requested a disputed fact administrative law hearing, an expedited one, in fact, so he could get the ESO lifted. This is separate from the criminal case, which remains in progress.
Davila was accused of running a massage gun over a patient’s genitals on July 6, 2021, then putting his hands on her genital area. In the end, administrative law judge Elizabeth McArthur wrote, though there was DNA evidence, this came down to Davila’s word against the patient’s.
McArthur found the patient’s testimony “credible, clear, convincing and weighty” and credibly supported by people the patient spoke with July 6-8, 2021. On the other hand, she found the testimony of Davila and his only fact witness “lacked credibility and consistency.”
McArthur wrote: “In a number of ways, [Davila] actually corroborated (the patient’s) version of the incident, but attempted to explain details in ways that lacked credibility.” McArthur brought up the example of Davila saying he locked the examination room door because he was concerned a random member of the public might enter mistakenly.
McArthur pointed out someone would have to turn left entering the building, go to the end of the hallway with other doors marked as being part of a pain management practice, ignore all those markings and open the door. That, she said, was as unlikely as someone randomly walking into an exam room in a dedicated medical office suite.
McArthur ruled that the Department of Health proved Davila engaged in sexual misconduct with the patient. She recommended license revocation with a $10,000 administrative fine and investigative and prosecution costs.
The Board of Medicine’s Final Order that posted on Aug. 18 said the fines would be decided later. But, Davila’s license was revoked.
Mircea Morariu, Delray Beach
Morariu’s license was revoked two years into his five-year probation for poisoning water or food after pouring powder analyzed as Ambien and Xanax in a woman’s drink at Boca Raton restaurant Ouzo Bay’s bar area in 2018.
READ MORE: A Florida doctor put Xanax and Ambien in a woman’s drink. She didn’t know what he did
Jeffrey Morgan, Fort Lauderdale
In a May 17 email to the Miami Herald, Morgan called the Florida Department of Health’s 2011 administrative complaint accusations of prescribing high doses of pain pills without reason “wildly fraudulent accusations” that “rose to the level of racial discrimination evidenced in numerous ways...”
By that point, administrative law judge Darren Schwartz had recommended license revocation after a hearing Morgan requested, but in which he wasn’t allowed to participate.
Schwartz wrote that Morgan was a no-show at Jan. 11 and Feb. 21 scheduled depositions. After Schwartz wrote an order telling Morgan to give Department of Health attorneys, by March 4, dates in which he could be available for a deposition or risk not being allowed to testify at the final hearing, Morgan didn’t respond. Nor, according to Schwartz, did Morgan file a proposed recommended order.
Schwartz ruled that Morgan “violated the standard of care for each of the five patients by prescribing controlled substances inappropriately and in excessive quantities and, by failing to offer alternative, less dangerous treatments to control the patients’ pain.”
Morgan’s license was revoked on Friday, Aug. 26.
Francesco Cabrera, Miami
Cabrera was released from federal prison on Sept. 30, 2021, after the required amount of his 20-month term for attempt and conspiracy to commit mail fraud. Cabrera also got hit with $67,940 in restitution.
According to his guilty plea, Cabrera was the medical doctor and state registered agent for Emergency Room Medical Doctors (E.R.M.D.) and Marlins Medical Center (the latter not affiliated with the Miami Marlins, though only a block and a half from the Marlins home stadium). They were supposedly medical clinics that served patients with private insurance.
With Florida Management & Administration president Hector Perez Acosta and Marlins Medical Center employee Julio Miranda Castro, they ripped off Blue Cross Blue Shield with fraudulent healthcare claims. Sometimes, Cabrera’s guilty plea admits, he “acted with willful and/or deliberate ignorance.”
Cabrera’s cronies paid kickbacks to patient recruiters who provided the people needed for claims about services never provided. One patient, S.B. came in to Marlins Medical Center and was given a single allergy test. She signed paperwork given to her by Perez Acosta and the fraudsters turned that into claims for five visits to E.R.M.D, which is in West Miami-Dade. She told investigators she never came back for the results and the allergy test for pet dander were “medically unnecessary because she owns a dog.”
Cabrera, 64, had been licensed since July 9, 1993.
Yvelice Villaman-Bencosme, Hialeah/Pembroke Pines
While at Unlimited Medical Research from 2013 to 2016, Villaman-Bencosme faked the data on a clinical trial for a children’s asthma drug.
READ MORE: What happened to a Hialeah doctor who made up clinical trial data for a kids’ asthma drug
Villaman-Bencosme has been in federal prison since March after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Her release date is Sept. 11, 2026.
This story was originally published August 29, 2022 at 1:11 PM.
