See what South Florida real estate got seized after a $54 million Medicare fraud plot
A gang of four — two men from Broward County and two from Palm Beach County — pulled off a Medicare fraud scheme that cost the federal agency more than $54 million. After getting caught and convicted, all four lost their freedom.
However, one of them also lost four pieces of residential real estate in Broward County and Miami as well as two Sea-Doos and Cartier, Royal Oak and Rolex jewelry and watches.
Lighthouse Point’s Omar Solari (two years, six months prison time), Fort Lauderdale’s Michael Murphy (one year, three months), Boca Raton’s Luis Lacerda (three years, five months) each pleaded guilty in Jacksonville federal court, to conspiracy to commit mail fraud. Boca’s Joelson Viveros (five years on probation) pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the United States.
Each got hit with restitution and forfeiture along with their prison or probation sentences for the fraud they pulled off from 2018 through 2021. As described in their guilty pleas and by the U.S. Justice Department, they “paid kickbacks and bribes to telemarketers and telemedicine providers to secure orders for medically unnecessary prescriptions that were billed to Medicare.”
Each also had restitution and forfeiture judgments attached to their prison or probation time. But only Solari still owned the real estate and arm decorations, such as a $47,000 Royal Oak Chronograph Black Dial RG bracelet and a $37,000 Rolex Day Date Yellow Gold watch, that could be snagged by the government to satisfy the forfeiture order.
READ MORE: How a $53 million fraud got a Florida telemarketer and his 9 cronies prison time
Real estate lost in forfeiture
▪ 2801 NE 48th St., Lighthouse Point, four bedrooms, three and a half bathrooms, 3,672 sq. ft., built in 2001. Sold on Nov. 7 for $2.65 million.
▪ 2180 NE 44th St., Lighthouse Point, four apartment units, built in 1962. Sold on Aug. 2 for $1.025 million.
▪ 5760 Rock Island Rd., No. 330, Tamarac, owned by Solari Capital LLC, one bedroom, one bathroom, 695 sq. ft., 1988 built. sold on Oct. 22 for $150,000.
▪ The Ivy Condo, 90 SW Third Street, Miami, No. 2013, owned by Solari Capital LLC, two bedrooms, two and a half bathrooms, 1,274 sq. ft., built in 2008. Sold May 31 for $585,000.
Murphy did own 5510 Bayview Dr. in Fort Lauderdale, a 2,217 sq. ft., three-bedroom, three-bathroom house he and then-wife Grazielle Murphy bought in 2020 for $1.25 million. As ex-husband and ex-wife, Michael lateraled it to Grazielle via quit claim deed on June 1, 2022, two months before Murphy was indicted.
Grazielle Murphy sold the house four months later, on Oct. 27, 2022, for $2.2 million to Doral-based Caputo’s Group LLC. State records list Mario Caputo and Concettina Melillo as Caputo’s Group officers.
With that property unavailable, prosecutors snagged $402,779 from Murphy.
