LOS ANGELES
The former president and CEO of a Whittier medical clinic was sentenced Monday to 10 years in federal prison for submitting fraudulent billings to a Medi-Cal healthcare program that provides family planning services to low-income Californians without health insurance, officials stated.
U.S. District Judge Otis D. Wright sentenced Vincenzo Rubino, 59, of Valencia. The judge also ordered him to pay $3.8 million in restitution and entered a money judgment of $2.3 million.
Rubino pleaded guilty in August 2023 to nine counts of healthcare fraud and two counts of aggravated identity theft. Rubino pleaded guilty mid-trial when the prosecution had nearly finished presenting its case to the jury.
Rubino founded, owned, and operated Santa Maria’s Children and Family Center, a Whittier-based medical clinic registered as a non-profit public benefit corporation and enrolled as a Family Planning, Access, Care and Treatment (Family PACT) provider run through Medi-Cal.
From November 2014 to August 2017, the center submitted fraudulent claims totaling nearly $5 million to the Family PACT program for family planning services that were never provided, often using the information of patients who were recruited at off-site locations with offers of free diabetes testing.
To submit many of these claims, Rubino used the names of two medical providers who were not employed at Santa Maria. The patients did not see these providers – a physician’s assistant and an elderly doctor who was himself a patient in a skilled nursing facility during much of the scheme.
The Medi-Cal program paid more than $2.3 million on the fraudulent claims and an additional approximately $1.5 million to a pharmacy and laboratory for claims stemming from referrals from Santa Maria based on the same services that were never delivered.
“This defendant took advantage of healthcare services intended for people in need,” said United States Attorney Martin Estrada. “Instead of allowing that money to go where it was intended, Rubino stole millions of dollars through sham claims to Medi-Cal for family planning services that either were unnecessary or unprovided.”
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General and the California Department of Justice investigated this matter.
Assistant United States Attorneys Kristen A. Williams of the Major Frauds Section and David H. Chao of the General Crimes Section prosecuted this case.