Cerabino: Trump's clemency lets Medicare-defrauding eye doctor Salomon Melgen see the light | Opinion

Frank Cerabino
Palm Beach Post
Palm Beach Post columnist Frank Cerabino

Some prison sentences ought to be served.

That’s the way I felt this week when I learned that among the batch of last-minute pardons and commutations issued by outgoing President Donald Trump was one for Palm Beach County eye doctor Salomon Melgen.

Really? He’s the guy who gets to play a get-out-of-jail card?

Less than three years ago, Melgen, 66, had been sentenced to 17 years in prison for what prosecutors described as one of the biggest Medicare fraud cases in the country.

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It wasn’t just the tens of millions of dollars that Melgen had bilked from taxpayers. That was bad enough. But not the heart of it.

There was an element of unnecessary physical pain for those unsuspecting patients who had to endure Melgen’s self-enriching, medically dubious eye treatments, which included eye injections and retinal laser blasts. 

These were treatments that a retinal specialist testifying at Melgen’s trial called “elder abuse,” “unconscionable” and “horrifying.”

That’s the guy who needs to be set free? The guy who found a way to get rich by mistreating old people’s eyes?

That’s the guy who deserves presidential attention to wipe out 14 years of his 17-year sentence?

Dr. Salomon Melgen arrives at the federal courthouse in West Palm Beach on April 28, 2017, as the jury deliberates. Melgen was taken into custody immediately after he was found guilty of 67 counts charging him with stealing up to $105 million from Medicare between 2008 and 2013.

To do that, you'd think that what happened to Melgen was some miscarriage of justice, fodder for one of those movie plots about the innocent man caught in a web of twisted prosecutors.

Not even close. 

A jury in federal court in West Palm Beach found Melgen guilty of 76 counts of fraud. Much of it centered around his use of Lucentis, a drug that was reimbursed by Medicare at $2,000 a vial. 

Medicare paid the eye doctors for their services at a rate of 6% above of the cost of each vial – which worked out to $120 a vial.

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Melgen — who operated clinics in West Palm Beach, Wellington, Delray Beach and Port St. Lucie — had supercharged his reimbursements by multidosing the Lucentis, getting more than one dose from each vial, then charging the government multiple increments of $2,000 for that single $2,000 vial.

He also maintained an unholy alliance with U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, a Democrat from New Jersey, who was charged with accepting bribes from Melgen in exchange for intervening with government officials on the doctor’s behalf. That case was dropped after an 11-week trial resulted in a hung jury. 

But Melgen’s fraud conviction in U.S. District Court in West Palm Beach ended in a jury verdict of guilty.

Donald Trump waves to his supporters gathered along Southern Blvd. for the last time as President of the United States as his motorcade carries him from Palm Beach International Airport to Mar-a-Lago, January 20, 2021.  DAMON HIGGINS/PALM BEACH POST

The federal guidelines called for him to serve as many as 24 years in prison. The prosecutor asked U.S. District Judge Kenneth Marra to exceed the guidelines and sentence Melgen to 30 years for his crimes.

But Marra gave Melgen a break, sending him to prison for 17 years after his lawyers presented testimonials from grateful patients.

After Melgen was sent to prison, he continued to fight to overturn his conviction. But the 11th Circuit Court of Appeal issued a 25-page ruling rejecting every element of his appeal. 

The court noted that about 15% of patients with macular degeneration have the wet version – the kind that calls for the $2,000 Medicare-reimbursed injections – but a “remarkable” 97.8% of Melgen’s patients were diagnosed with this relatively rare ailment. 

The court also noted that all the doctor’s black patients were treated for the wet version of macular degeneration, even though it’s “almost never present in the African-American population.”

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After losing in the appellate court, Melgen’s lawyers tried the U.S. Supreme Court, which denied to consider his case.

He was out of options. That's until Trump turned out to be the crooked doctor’s savior. 

It probably didn’t hurt that the doctor’s lawyers found a way to blame former President Barack Obama for Melgen’s prosecution.

The members of Brigade 2506, the Cuban-American veterans of the failed 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion aimed at overthrowing Fidel Castro, became advocates for Melgen’s release. 

“We believe that Dr. Melgen was maliciously prosecuted due to his close friendship to Cuban-American leaders, particularly Senator Robert Menendez, who vocally and vigorously opposed the Obama Administration’s dangerous ‘Iran Deal,’ and ‘Cuba normalization,' " read a signed letter sent to Trump by numerous brigade members.

Dr. Salomon Melgen (left) arrives at the federal courthouse in West Palm Beach with his attorney, Kirk Ogrosky, Tuesday, April 11, 2017. Melgen is facing 76 counts charging him with stealing up to $105 million from Medicare between 2008 and 2013. (Lannis Waters / The Palm Beach Post)

The idea that the Obama administration stopped a Medicare fraudster who ran a 6-year scheme to bilk taxpayers out of at least $73 million simply out of spite over his friendship to a Cuban-American senator – and a Democrat to boot – is beyond ridiculous. 

Melgen, who is Dominican and not Cuban, donated at least $750,000 to Menendez’ political campaigns. He served as the senator’s private airline, flying him on his private jet to vacation spots in France, Florida and the Caribbean. 

In return, the senator helped the doctor get visas for his foreign girlfriends, pressured federal agencies to further the doctor’s investments in the Dominican Republic, and interfered with the government’s investigation of Melgen’s runaway use of Lucentis.

In 2012 alone, Melgen led every doctor in America in the amount of Medicare billing. If you believe his numbers, he dispensed about 37,000 doses of Lucentis that year to 645 different patients. 

When you do the math, that’s 101 doses every day for all 365 days of the year.

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That’s the kind of greed that gets a person put behind bars. It has nothing to do with the Iran nuclear deal or the ethnicity of the U.S. senator he had purchased.

As for Melgen, well, prison hasn’t taught him any shame.

“Throughout this ordeal, I have come to realize the very deep flaws in our justice system and how people are at the complete mercy of prosecutors and judges," Melgen said in a prepared statement. "As of today, I am committed to fighting for unjustly incarcerated people."

fcerabino@gannett.com

@FranklyFlorida