455 people, including doctors, charged in nationwide Medicare fraud, opioid abuse schemes <\/a><\/p>\nThe largest local case involves Leigh Tesar, Walter Presha and Koby Evans, who are accused of participating in a wound care fraud scheme that allegedly billed Medicare more than $118 million over an 18-month period.<\/p>\n
\u201cTesar\u2026 Presha\u2026 and Koby Evans\u2026 were indicted for wound care fraud\u2026 a scheme that could have cost the taxpayers\u2026 $118 million,\u201d U.S. Attorney Gregory Kehoe said.<\/p>\n
According to prosecutors, the defendants targeted Medicare patients so expensive skin grafts could be billed to the government.<\/p>\n
Investigators allege some of the grafts were never applied, were medically unnecessary or were used on patients whose wounds would not heal. Prosecutors said Medicare paid approximately $61 million on those claims, and investigators have seized about $11.8 million in assets.<\/p>\n
Other local cases include charges against Leo Corrigan, who is accused of participating in schemes involving COVID-19 tests and genetic testing; Rustam Abdaev, who has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering in connection with false durable medical equipment claims; and Henry Garcia, who is accused of paying illegal kickbacks tied to Medicare brace orders.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors also charged Pasco County attorney Marc Vincent Pazienza with wire fraud and falsification of records.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have an attorney\u2026 who was involved in defrauding the fraudsters,\u201d Kehoe said. \u201cWhat he did was he took their money\u2026 and in fact, he took the money and never paid it back.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to prosecutors, Pazienza is accused of stealing more than $300,000 from clients connected to a Medicare fraud investigation and providing false documents during a federal grand jury investigation.<\/p>\n
Federal prosecutors said the local cases are part of a coordinated nationwide enforcement effort targeting health care fraud.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n
For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WFLA. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) \u2014 Federal prosecutors announced charges Friday against several people across the Tampa Bay area as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":322065,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[34917,90875,133518,133513,133517,12231,132194,135,137,136,133514,133516,133515],"class_list":["post-322064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-federal-prosecutors","tag-health-care-fraud","tag-isaac-bledsoe","tag-koby-evans","tag-leigh-tesar","tag-medicare","tag-medicare-fraud","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-u-s-department-of-health-and-human-services-office","tag-walter-presha","tag-wound-care-fraud"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=322064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322064\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/322065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}