Medicaid Crackdown Nets Five Arrests in North Florida

Florida law-enforcement agents arrested five health-care executives and employees as part of a Medicaid fraud crackdown today.

Arrested were HC Healthcare owner Robert A. Krasnow, 36, of Gainesville; Dr. Yong Am Park, 66, of Lake City; Robert T. Krasnow, 58, of Gainesville, the father of Robert A. Krasnow; hospital administrator Christina L. Ortega, 42, of Lake City; and licensed practical nurse Ashley Lane Butler, 37, of Live Oak.

According to the criminal charges, HC Healthcare engaged in a scheme of fraudulently admitting Medicaid recipients to the now-closed Trinity Community Hospital and its affiliated clinics in Hamilton, Suwanee and Columbia counties. More arrests are pending.

Investigators alleged that more than $130,000 in Medicaid funds were fraudulently disbursed and that more than $660,000 in state grant funds dedicated to hospital improvements were received by the corporation, but little if any of these funds were used to make such improvements.

This investigation exposed a pattern of corruption that has siphoned hundreds of thousands of dollars away from Florida taxpayers, and today that scheme will end, said Attorney General Bill McCollum.