State drops domestic violence case against Esformes, previously freed by Trump for fraud
The Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office is not going to pursue domestic violence charges against a convicted South Florida healthcare executive whose 20-year prison sentence for Medicare fraud had been commuted by former President Donald Trump.
Philip Esformes was booked in October on his 56th birthday on charges of tampering with a victim or witness and criminal mischief involving property damage of $1,000 or more, according to Miami-Dade Circuit Court records. Both were related to domestic violence, records show.
But on Tuesday, at his scheduled arraignment, Miami-Dade Assistant State Attorney Jose Rohaidy told Circuit Judge Cristina Miranda that his office was “taking no further action” against Esformes, without elaborating why the felony charges would not be filed in his case.
The state attorney’s office did not immediately respond to the Miami Herald’s inquiry about the reason for dismissing the case. Esformes’ temporary defense attorney, Lara Gatz, could not be reached for comment.
Esformes was arrested on the evening of Oct. 12 after an argument with his wife and her son at their Miami Beach home. A judge issued a stay-away order, and he was then released from the county jail after posting a nominal bond, according to records.
Argument over child staying up late
According to an arrest affidavit, Esformes got into an argument around 10:30 p.m. with his wife’s son over the son staying up past his bedtime. His wife, Aurelia Castiel, 42, said she tried to defuse the “verbal altercation” between them and Esformes “began yelling at her,” says the affidavit, which lists the son as a minor.
Castiel said that as the argument escalated, “she became in fear for her safety” and grabbed her cell phone to call the police.
“You’re going to call 911,” Esformes told Castiel, according to the arrest report. “Call 911 and see what I’ll do.”
Castiel said Esformes “snatched her cell phone out of her hand and slammed it on the floor to prevent her from calling the police for help,” the arrest affidavit says. The phone screen was completely shattered and would not turn on.
In that moment, Castiel said, she ran to a neighbor’s house for her safety to call the police. After officers arrived, Castiel told them what happened and declined medical assistance, saying “no one was injured” during the incident.
Esformes was taken into custody and brought to the Miami Beach Beach Police Department to be booked. Castile’s cell phone was impounded and her son’s video of the incident was uploaded as evidence. Police also contacted the Department of Children and Family Services on behalf of the son.
According to the arrest report, Esformes and Castiel have been “religiously married” for three years. Property records show that the couple’s home at 980 W. 48th St. in Miami Beach is owned by the Norman J. Ginsparg Trust with a mailing address of 5069 North Bay Road, a residence that Esformes owns next door to his main home at 5077 North Bay Road in Miami Beach.
Esformes’ former wife, Sherri Beth, had filed for divorce in July 2015 and it was finalized in October 2020, according to court records. Esformes is still listed as the owner of the family’s home at 5077 North Bay Road. Property records show it is valued at $7.5 million.
Esformes, the son of a now-deceased rabbi who had started the family’s healthcare business in Chicago, was a fabulously rich businessman who once made more than $10 million in a single year from his network of Miami-Dade nursing and assisted living facilities. He also owns the two homes next door to each other on exclusive North Bay Road, along with numerous other properties in Miami, Chicago and Los Angeles.
Trump clemency
Esformes is at least the seventh person granted clemency by Trump during his first administration who was arrested on new charges after receiving a second chance, according to the New York Times,.
In February, Esformes pleaded guilty in Miami federal court to a healthcare-fraud conspiracy charge involving the theft of millions of dollars from the taxpayer-funded Medicare program, capping a long-running case marked by the commutation of his initial 20-year sentence by Trump in late 2020. Before the presidential commutation, Esformes had served 4-1/2 years of his 20-year prison term.
In 2019, Esformes was convicted of fraudulent billing at his chain of skilled-nursing and assisted-living facilities in Miami-Dade in a $1 billion Medicare fraud case that accused him and others of recycling patients through a local hospital, paying bribes and obstructing justice.
After his sentence was commuted by Trump, Esformes was spared returning to prison as part of a plea agreement with the Justice Department. But he was ordered to pay tens of millions of dollars in financial penalties reflecting his ill-gotten gains from the healthcare fraud conspiracy.
The plea agreement was reached in February between the Justice Department and Esformes in one of the nation’s biggest Medicare fraud cases. Despite Trump’s commutation of his initial prison term, Esformes faced a potential retrial on the main healthcare fraud conspiracy count and five related charges from his first trial in 2019 because a Miami federal jury deadlocked on those offenses while finding him guilty on 20 others.
READ MORE: Prosecutors will retry Miami healthcare mogul on hung charges from first fraud trial
Under the agreement, Esformes pleaded guilty to the conspiracy count but the other five hung charges from his first trial alleging bribery payments, money laundering and obstruction of justice were dismissed by prosecutors with the Justice Department and U.S. Attorney’s Office in Miami.
However, he was required to pay $5.5 million in restitution to the federal Medicare program. He was also required to pay at least $14 million from the sale of real estate and other business assets toward his outstanding forfeiture penalty of $38.7 million — the amount of money he received from Medicare through fraudulent billing at his Miami-Dade chain of assisted-living and skilled-nursing facilities between 2010 and 2016.
After the hearing, federal prosecutors said Esformes had already paid the restitution amount and was expected to pay at least $30 million toward his forfeiture obligation.
This story was originally published November 12, 2024 at 3:12 PM.
