South Florida Insurance Fraud: Feds Charge 92 Over $20 Million In ...

The vehicle collisions looked like typical South Florida accidents with motorists and passengers reporting they needed treatment from chiropractors and massage therapists.

But investigators said the crashes were carefully staged by willing participants who were trained how to defraud the insurance system to make money for themselves and a highly organized group of medical professionals, clinic owners and recruiters.

Investigators announced charges Thursday against 33 people they said were involved in staging accidents for insurance fraud -- the latest hit in a three-year investigation that identified about $20 million in fraudulently obtained payouts from insurers.

"If you get upset about your car insurance premiums going up, this crime is one of the reasons why," said William J. Maddalena, the assistant special agent in charge of FBI Miami. "Every time an insurance payout is made for a staged accident in Florida, we all feel the pain in the pocketbook."

Operation Sledgehammer, a state and federal investigation, has led to charges being filed against a total of 92 defendants from Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties. Those already convicted have been ordered to pay more than $5 million in restitution to insurance companies so far, prosecutors said.

The operation got its code name when undercover investigators saw suspects using a sledgehammer to make vehicles look like they'd been in an accident.

The fraud involved a "massive," complicated, highly organized scheme that investigators said included everyone from clinic owners and medical staff who provided fraudulent diagnoses and prescribed fake treatment, to office workers who billed for the services, and recruiters who found accident "victims" and trained them to stage collisions on the streets and highways of South Florida.

The criminal charges filed this week targeted 33 people from West Palm Beach, Lake Worth, Weston, Parkland, Davie, Hollywood, Boynton Beach, Greenacres, Doral, Miami and Hialeah with a slew of charges including mail fraud and money-laundering conspiracies, structuring financial transactions and participating in staged-accident fraud.

The scheme dated from about October 2006 to December 2012 and the defendants staged accidents and submitted false insurance claims through 21 chiropractic clinics in Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties that they controlled, authorities said.

Of the 33 charged, 26 have been arrested or agreed to surrender, federal and state law enforcement officials said at a Thursday afternoon news conference in the U.S. Attorney's Office in West Palm Beach.

The ringleaders recruited chiropractors Lazaro Rodriguez, 58, of Doral, and Kenneth Karow, 53, of Boynton Beach, and others to serve as the named owners of some of the clinics, investigators said.

Five of the defendants, including alleged ringleaders Vladimir Lopez, 38, and Lazaro Vigoa Mauri, 45, both formerly of West Palm Beach, have fled to Cuba and they and the other defendants who have not yet been caught are considered fugitives, authorities said.

Maddalena said the investigation was kicked off by a tip from a member of the public and urged anyone with information to call their local police department.

The participants in the fraud were trained by recruiters on how to make the accidents look realistic, how to file police reports and insurance claims, how to fake injuries and where to go for treatment, Maddalena said. The ringleaders made sure that insurance checks were deposited into accounts they controlled so they could pay the participants, he said.

Of the 92 people charged to date in the fraud scheme, the U.S. Attorney's Office filed federal charges against 56 of them and the Palm Beach State Attorney's Office filed state charges against 36 of them.

Lawrence Schechtman, 45, a chiropractor from Parkland, Olinda Rodriguez, 39, a massage therapist from West Palm Beach, and Iris Roca, 41, a massage therapist from Davie, were charged separately with participating in staged accident fraud schemes and are expected to surrender in the next few days.

pmcmahon@tribune.com, 954-356-4533 or Twitter @SentinelPaula ___

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/17/south-florida-insurance-fraud_n_3289964.html

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Nine-year-old Mars rover passes 40-year-old record

May 17, 2013 ? While Apollo 17 astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt visited Earth's moon for three days in December 1972, they drove their mission's Lunar Roving Vehicle 19.3 nautical miles (22.210 statute miles or 35.744 kilometers). That was the farthest total distance for any NASA vehicle driving on a world other than Earth until yesterday.

The team operating NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity received confirmation in a transmission from Mars today that the rover drove 263 feet (80 meters) on Thursday, bringing Opportunity's total odometry since landing on Mars in January 2004 to 22.220 statute miles (35.760 kilometers).

Cernan discussed this prospect a few days ago with Opportunity team member Jim Rice of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The Apollo 17 astronaut said, "The record we established with a roving vehicle was made to be broken, and I'm excited and proud to be able to pass the torch to Opportunity."

The international record for driving distance on another world is still held by the Soviet Union's remote-controlled Lunokhod 2 rover, which traveled 23 miles (37 kilometers) on the surface of Earth's moon in 1973.

Opportunity began a multi-week trek this week from an area where it has been working since mid-2011, the "Cape York" segment of the rim of Endeavour Crater, to an area about 1.4 miles (2.2 kilometers) away, "Solander Point."

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Exploration Rover Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL also manages the Mars Science Laboratory Project and its rover, Curiosity, which landed on Mars in August 2012.

For more information about Opportunity, visit http://www.nasa.gov/rovers and http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov . You can follow the project on Twitter and on Facebook at: http://twitter.com/MarsRovers and http://www.facebook.com/mars.rovers .

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/wuHIEDRP8yQ/130517120939.htm

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Jekyll into Hyde: Breathing auto emissions turns HDL cholesterol from 'good' to 'bad'

May 15, 2013 ? Academic researchers have found that breathing motor vehicle emissions triggers a change in high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, altering its cardiovascular protective qualities so that it actually contributes to clogged arteries.

In addition to changing HDL from "good" to "bad," the inhalation of emissions activates other components of oxidation, the early cell and tissue damage that causes inflammation, leading to hardening of the arteries, according to the research team, which included scientists from UCLA and other institutions.

The findings of this early study, done in mice, are available in the online edition of the journal Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology, a publication of the American Heart Association, and will appear in the journal's June print edition.

Emission particles such as those from vehicles are major pollutants in urban settings. These particles are coated in chemicals that are sensitive to free radicals, which have been known to cause oxidation. The mechanism behind how this leads to atherosclerosis, however, has not been well understood.

In the study, the researchers found that after two weeks of exposure to vehicle emissions, mice showed oxidative damage in the blood and liver -- damage that was not reversed after a subsequent week of receiving filtered air. Altered HDL cholesterol may play a key role in this damaging process, they said.

"This is the first study showing that air pollutants promote the development of dysfunctional, pro-oxidative HDL cholesterol and the activation of an internal oxidation pathway, which may be one of the mechanisms in how air pollution can exacerbate clogged arteries that lead to heart disease and stroke," said senior author Dr. Jesus Araujo, an associate professor of medicine and director of environmental cardiology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.

For the study, one group of mice was exposed to vehicle emissions for two weeks and then filtered air for one week, a second was exposed to two weeks of emissions with no filtered air, and a third was exposed to only clean, filtered air for two weeks. This part of the collaborative research took place at the Northlake Exposure Facility at the University of Washington, headed by study author Michael E. Rosenfeld.

"The biggest surprise was finding that after two weeks of exposure to vehicle emissions, one week of breathing clean filtered air was not enough to reverse the damage," said Rosenfeld, a professor of environmental and occupational health sciences and pathology at the University of Washington.

Mice were exposed for a few hours, several days a week, to whole diesel exhaust at a particulate mass concentration within the range of what mine workers usually are exposed to.

After the exposures, UCLA scientists analyzed blood and tissue specimens and checked to see if the protective antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties of HDL, known as "good" cholesterol, were still intact. They used special analytical laboratory procedures originally developed by study author Mohamad Navab at UCLA to evaluate how "good" or "bad" HDL had become. The team found that many of the positive properties of HDL were markedly altered after the air-pollutant exposure.

For example, the HDL of mice exposed to two weeks of vehicle emissions, including those that received a subsequent week of filtered air, had a much-decreased ability to protect against oxidation and inflammation induced by low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, known as "bad" cholesterol, than the mice that had only been exposed to filtered air.

According to researchers, without HDL's ability to inhibit LDL, along with other factors, the oxidation process may run unchecked. Moreover, not only was the HDL of the mice exposed to diesel exhaust unable to protect against oxidation, but, in fact, it further enhanced the oxidative process and even worked in tandem with the LDL to promote even more oxidative damage.

Researchers also found a twofold to threefold increase of additional oxidation products in the blood of mice exposed to vehicle emissions, as well as activation of oxidation pathways in the liver. The degree of HDL dysfunction was correlated with the level of these oxidation markers.

"We suggest that people try to limit their exposure to air pollutants, as they may induce damage that starts during the exposure and continues long after it ends," said first author Fen Yin, a researcher in the division of cardiology at the Geffen School of Medicine.

The current research builds on the team's previous findings that ambient ultrafine particles commonly found in air pollution, including vehicle emissions, enhance the build-up of cholesterol plaques in the arteries and that HDL may play a role.

"Our research helps confirm that the functionality of HDL may be as important to check as the levels," said study author Dr. Alan Fogelman, executive chair of the department of medicine and director of the atherosclerosis research unit at the Geffen School of Medicine.

The study was funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences; the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute; and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Additional authors included Akeem Lawal, Jerry Ricks, Julie R. Fox and Tim Larson.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/health_medicine/heart_disease/~3/y95iQGrEsdU/130515174027.htm

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Google's Products Are Just By-Products Of Its Quest For Tomorrow ...

Google isn?t about search, apps or devices. Those are just vehicles, and there?s no destination. That?s because Larry Page?s Google is on an unending pursuit of the future, not just next quarter?s earnings.?The scattershot of projects Google revealed today at I/O had just one unifying factor: They further that pursuit, or empower the curiosity of others.

Google is lucky. It takes a lot of fuel to shoot for the moon. Fuel that most tech companies don?t have or are unwilling to burn. But Google has ads that pay for everything the company does. The armies of employees, the seas of servers, and the laboratories for experimenting in both the digital and physical worlds.

I talked to a Google Chrome engineer the other night. He described his job as almost academic. No one ever talks about money ? how much things cost or how much they would make. His job is simply to let people access information as quickly and efficiently as possible. That?s the future, and a browser is just the by-product.

Google didn?t launch its new on-demand subscription service Google Play Music All Access just because it wanted to get into music; Android is Google?s push to see the potential of our phones. Music is a fundamental companion to being on the go, so why not let people listen to any song they want? All Access was just something Google had to do to see our lifestyles merge with mobile computing.

Digital communication shouldn?t just be a degraded version of talking with someone in person. When we can share, emote and collaborate seamlessly no matter where we are or what device we?re on, brilliant things will happen.?So out springs a new cross-platform messaging version of Hangouts. Google isn?t trying to desperately win market share and engagement with today?s big revamp of Google Maps, it?s just another step towards the future of navigation.

Google also wants to accelerate other intrepid explorers chasing what?s next. Today it gave developers new cloud messaging capabilities, Android Studio for testing apps, extra location APIs, and an easy app translation service. It knows it can?t unlock the future by itself, so it lets others forge their own keys.

Compare all this to the other tech giants who seem myopically focused on today?s wars for display ad and mobile hardware dollars.?Apple and Samsung seem busy with another iteration of their latest smartphone, or linear innovation for watches and TVs. Even if Apple is secretly concocting wetware computers that go inside our bodies, it still seems to be in service of building ?beautiful? products and making money.?Facebook has its hands full with mobile with projects like Home, and Amazon is making TV shows.

They all seem vulnerable. One or two flops away from fading. A crummy iPhone, a hip new social app, and suddenly the tides could turn.?Meanwhile, Google has leapfrogged into the next decade with exponential innovation.

And that?s the plan. Google?s CEO?Larry Page said on stage ?we should be building things that don?t exist.? {Update: After the keynote I talked with co-founder Sergey Brin who explained ?It?s important to be willing to take risks, and we do take risks, I?m very excited about these [tapping the Google Glass he was currently wearing]. We?re willing to make bets. Some of them pan out, some of them don?t.?But I think there are a lot of companies that as they grow they become more conservative.?}

Google doesn?t have to be conservative. Search, maps, Android ? they aren?t going to disappear. And with that foundation, Google is free to try, tinker and even fail. But when it fails, it learns, and for Google, that?s the whole point.

September 7, 1998

NASDAQ:GOOG

Google provides search and advertising services, which together aim to organize and monetize the world?s information. In addition to its dominant search engine, it offers a plethora of online tools and platforms including: Gmail, Maps, YouTube, and Google+, the company?s extension into the social space. Most of its Web-based products are free, funded by Google?s highly integrated online advertising platforms AdWords and AdSense. Google promotes the idea that advertising should be highly targeted and relevant to users thus providing...

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Larry Page was Google?s founding CEO and grew the company to more than 200 employees and profitability before moving into his role as president of products in April 2001. He continues to share responsibility for Google?s day-to-day operations with Eric Schmidt and Sergey Brin. The son of Michigan State University computer science professor Dr. Carl Victor Page, Larry?s love of computers began at age six. While following in his father?s footsteps in academics, he became an honors graduate from the...

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Source: http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/15/google-and-the-quest-for-tomorrow/

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Alonso thrills home fans with Spanish GP win

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) ? Fernando Alonso won the Spanish Grand Prix by nearly 10 seconds in a dominant performance in front of his home fans on Sunday to close the gap on championship leader Sebastian Vettel and get back in the Formula One title race.

Finnish driver Kimi Raikkonen finished second for the third straight race, with Alonso's Ferrari teammate Felipe Massa third as most drivers chose a four-stop strategy due to ongoing problem with Pirelli's fast-degrading tires. That issue remains a big concern as tires still shred far too easily despite pre-race modifications.

Starting from fifth place, Alonso won his second race this season, showing that Ferrari can challenge Red Bull for pure speed. Alonso was easily quicker than Vettel, with the three-time defending champion finishing 38.2 seconds behind in fourth ahead of teammate Mark Webber.

"In the four years with Ferrari this is the best (car) we've had," Alonso said. "I realized the race was in our pockets if we don't do mistakes."

He climbed on top of his Ferrari and waved a Spanish flag gleefully as he encouraged applause from the fans, who broke into chants of "Alonso, Alonso."

It was Alonso's second win in Barcelona ? the first coming in 2006 ? and his seventh career podium on the Circuit de Catalunya.

"It's very special winning at home and it doesn't matter how many times you repeat it," Alonso said. "Very long last laps because you want to finish as quickly as possible. Difficult qualifying as we were not too quick yesterday but we knew we had the pace on the long runs. We did it and everything worked perfect."

More importantly, the two-time former champion closed the gap on Vettel from 30 to 17 points, moving up to third overall. Raikkonen is only four points behind Vettel, who leads with 89 after five races.

"We have to just take what we can from every race," said Raikkonen, who was 9.3 seconds behind Alonso. "We just have to keep working as a team to achieve the biggest goal we can."

Massa's performance was arguably even better than Alonso's, as he started from ninth due to a grid penalty in qualifying.

"I was a little disappointed after qualifying, but the race was very good, we were very aggressive," Massa said. "I think we are in the right direction so I hope from now on we are fighting for the podium in every race."

Mercedes had a disappointing day after Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton started on the front grid. As has been the case this season, the Mercedes cars ? which are fast in qualifying ? again lacked race pace and durability as Rosberg finished sixth and Hamilton drifted back to 12th and was a lap off the pace.

"We have just got a lot to do to catch up with the others, but we will get there," Hamilton said.

He made a terrible start as Vettel flew past him at the first corner and Alonso found a small gap to surge past Raikkonen on turn one and then past Hamilton on the outside of turn three to move quickly into third.

Rosberg held on at the front as Massa quickly climbed from ninth to sixth and Grosjean went the other way.

Jenson Button's miserable weekend looked set to continue as he drifted from 14th to 17th, although he salvaged some pride with a credible eighth-place finish, holding off a late surge from teammate Sergio Perez to finish behind Paul di Resta.

"Turn one was a mess so to finish eighth probably wasn't too bad," Button said. "But there is a lot of work still to do."

Grosjean had been optimistic heading into the race after securing his first podium of the season with third place in Bahrain. But the Frenchman's back wheels locked up early on and he had to pull out due to mechanical failure.

With fears over tire degradation prominent, drivers took early pit stops.

"At this rate, F1 is going to become a pit-stop contest with a few race laps thrown in," Jacques Villeneuve, the 1997 F1 champion, said during television commentary. The issue was highlighted when strips of rubber started flying off Jean-Eric Vergne's Toro Rosso less than 40 laps into the race. He retired late on.

With a third of the race gone, Ferrari's pace was unrelenting and Alonso led Vettel by four seconds before pitting for the second time.

Raikkonen won the season-opening Australian GP on a three-stop strategy but the Finn lost time the longer he stayed on the older tires.

Caterham driver Giedo van der Garde's left rear wheel came off entirely and he also had to retire.

It was a busy afternoon in the pits as Sauber released Nico Hulkenberg too early and he bumped into the back of a Toro Rosso and with Pastor Maldonado ? last year's surprise winner ? pitting in the wrong place.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/alonso-thrills-home-fans-spanish-gp-win-150651044.html

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Rightist GERB holds lead in Bulgaria's election

By Tsvetelia Tsolova and Sam Cage

SOFIA (Reuters) - The rightist GERB party held the lead in Bulgaria's election on Sunday but its prospects of forming another government, after the last one was ousted by protests, looked uncertain after its potential partner ruled out a deal.

Turnout was the lowest in post-communist history, at around 53 percent, reflecting the disaffection with the political elite in a country where unemployment is close to an eight-year high.

GERB, which resigned in February after often violent demonstrations against poverty and corruption, was set to win 31 percent of the votes, ahead of the Socialists on 25-27 percent, exit polls by Alpha Research and Sova Harris agencies showed.

Deputy leader Tsvetan Tsvetanov said GERB could consider a minority government with backing from others, but its most likely partner, the nationalist Attack, ruled out support for a GERB-led government to lead the country of 7.3 million.

"GERB will be responsible to the nation," a subdued Tsvetanov told national television, adopting a conciliatory rather than triumphant tone. "Our leader is capable of proposing and forming a government - it could be a minority one."

A delay in forming a new administration may raise questions over economic policy, with low debt needed to maintain confidence in a currency pegged to the euro, and hinder growth. It may ultimately mean a new election.

All parties had waged a low-profile campaign, with few political posters in Bulgaria's towns and villages, where half-finished buildings evoke memories of the credit boom and bust under the 2005-2009 Socialist-led government.

They also dropped their usual post-election rallies.

About 200 people gathered in Sofia as polls closed, waving Bulgarian flags and banners criticizing GERB and the political elite, briefly scuffling with police.

But the protests were nothing like those earlier this year when thousands took to the streets and seven people set themselves on fire in disgust at corruption and organized crime and at how one in four Bulgarians still live below the poverty line, six years after joining the European Union.

NO SUPPORT

Pollster Alpha Research predicted GERB would win 97 of the 240 seats in parliament and the Socialists 85, leaving both needing partners to form a majority coalition - likely to be fragile given the bad feeling after an ill-tempered campaign.

Two other parties - the ethnic Turkish MRF, a previous partner of the Socialists, on 10-11 percent, and Attack on 7-8 percent - were set to enter parliament.

Attack leader Volen Siderov said his party could not support GERB - although analysts said this might be a negotiating position and a deal could still be possible.

"We cannot support someone who has declared anti-state and anti-Bulgarian policies," Siderov told reporters.

A new pro-business party, Bulgaria for the Citizens, could also beat the 4 percent threshold, which would reduce other groups' seats. First official results are expected on Monday.

GERB pledges to keep debt down and maintain economic stability, winning favor from investors, and supporters praise it for building schools and motorways. The Socialists say they will spend more, creating jobs and lifting growth above the 1 percent expected this year.

Under GERB, led by former bodyguard Boiko Borisov, Bulgaria has kept one of the lowest debt levels in the EU but its opponents say that has constrained growth in the country where the average monthly wage is 400 euros ($520).

About 2 million Bulgarians have left since the 1989 fall of communism and the country still struggles to supply running water and reliable electricity to some of its people.

GERB's campaign was marred by allegations of illegal wiretapping and the seizure of illegal ballot papers at a printing shop owned by one of its local councilors, increasing fears of vote rigging although there have so far been no significant complaints.

"The law protects politicians and they protect criminals. They are connected while we are still the poorest country in the European Union," IT specialist Kalin Borislavov, 28, said in Sofia.

(Additional reporting by Angel Krasimirov; Editing by Alison Williams)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/bulgarians-vote-election-unlikely-soothe-anger-040316861.html

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Son donates late mom's $100,000 Precious Moments collection to ...

GRANBY, Mo. ? A southwest Missouri woman?s collection of 2,000 Precious Moments figurines has been donated to a breast cancer foundation.

Jon Stouffer donated his late mother?s collection to the Breast Cancer Foundation of the Ozarks. Shirley Stouffer died of heart problems in 2007 at age 67, he said, and she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1992.

He said she collected Precious Moments figurines for about 25 years.

?They?re going to a good cause,? Jon said of the childlike angel figures. ?She would be pleased that they?re going to help somebody.?

Source: http://www.kansascity.com/2013/05/12/4231537/son-donates-late-moms-100000-precious.html

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