Getty Images/iStockphoto
Three doctors convicted of criminal charges and one still facing criminal charges are among six whose licenses were revoked by the Florida Board of Medicine in August.
In alphabetical order…
Kathleen Cullen, Seminole
Cullen was also licensed in Alabama. There she was paroled on February 24, 2021 following the Alabama Medical Licensing Commission reprimanded her and fined her $10,000 for letting a nurse handle telemedicine services she should have performed. The Commission also wondered if there might be health care fraud involving Cullen and Bronson Medical, and subpoenaed records to investigate.
“However, neither Dr. Cullen nor Bronson Medical was able to produce any records prior to hearing,” the Commission wrote. “The Commission suspects that these omissions were intentional but, without the records, the Commission is not reasonably satisfied that there is substantial evidence to show whether Dr. Cullen committed fraud or was Bronson Medical’s unwitting accomplice to the fraud.” .
Cullen did not pay the $10,000 fine or complete a medical ethics course within six months. So on October 27, 2021, Alabama revoked Cullen’s license, which he had held since July 24, 2013.
After Alabama’s action, Florida on Aug. 12 revoked Cullen’s license, which he had held since 1996.
Raul Davila Correa, Fort Myers
Davila faces two counts of assault and one count of sexual assault in Lee County Criminal Court, with the sexual assault charge prompting the state Secretary of Health’s Emergency Suspension Order (ESO) on October 7, 2021. The Florida Department of Health filed an administrative complaint on October 26 and Dávila Correa requested a hearing to have the ESO lifted. This is separate from the criminal case, which is still ongoing.
Davila was accused of running a massage gun over a female patient’s genitalia on July 6, 2021, and then placing his hands on her genital area. In the end, Administrative Law Judge Elizabeth McArthur wrote that although there was DNA evidence, this came down to Davila’s word once morest the patient’s.
McArthur found the patient’s testimony to be “credible, clear, convincing and compelling” and credibly supported by the people the patient spoke with on July 6-8, 2021. On the other hand, he found that Dávila’s testimony and his only factual witness “lacked credibility and uniformity.”
McArthur wrote: “In several respects, [Dávila] actually corroborated (the patient’s) version of the incident, but tried to explain the details in a way that lacked credibility.” McArthur brought up the example that Davila said he had locked the exam room door because he was worried a member of the public might enter by mistake.
McArthur noted that someone would have to turn left entering the building, go to the end of the hallway with other doors marked as part of a pain management consultation, ignore all those markings, and open the door. That, he said, was regarding as unlikely as someone randomly walking into an exam room at a doctor’s office.
McArthur ruled that the Department of Health proved that Davila engaged in sexual misconduct with the patient. He recommended revocation of the license with a $10,000 administrative fine and the costs of the investigation and prosecution.
The final order of the Board of Medicine that was published on August 18 said that the fines would be decided later. But, Davila’s license was revoked.
Mircea Morariu, Delray Beach
Morariu’s license was revoked two years into his five-year probation for poisoning water or food following pouring powder tested for Ambien and Xanax into a woman’s drink at the bar of Boca Raton’s Ouzo Bay restaurant in 2018.
Jeffrey Morgan, Fort Lauderdale
In a May 17 email to the Miami Herald, Morgan called the allegations in the Florida Department of Health’s 2011 administrative complaint that he prescribed high doses of painkillers for no reason “wildly fraudulent allegations” that “were raised to the level of racial discrimination evidenced in various ways…”.
By then, Administrative Law Judge Darren Schwartz had recommended revocation of the license following a hearing that Morgan requested but was not allowed to participate in.
Schwartz wrote that Morgan did not show up for depositions scheduled for January 11 and February 21. After Schwartz issued an order directing Morgan to give Health Department attorneys, by March 4, dates when he might be available for deposition or risk not being allowed to testify at the final hearing, Morgan did not answer. According to Schwartz, Morgan also did not submit a proposed recommended order.
Schwartz ruled that Morgan “violated the standard of care for each of the five patients by improperly prescribing controlled substances in excessive amounts and by failing to offer alternative, less dangerous treatments to control patients’ pain.”
Morgan’s license was revoked on Friday, August 26.
Francesco Cabrera, Miami
Cabrera was released from federal prison on September 30, 2021, following his 20-month sentence for attempt and conspiracy to commit mail fraud. Cabrera was also sentenced to $67,940 in restitution.
According to his plea agreement, Cabrera was the physician and state-registered agent for Emergency Room Medical Doctors (ERMD) and Marlins Medical Center (the latter is not affiliated with the Miami Marlins, although it is a block and a half from the Miami Marlins stadium). the Marlins). They were supposed medical clinics that attended patients with private insurance.
Along with Florida Management & Administration President Héctor Pérez Acosta and Marlins Medical Center employee Julio Miranda Castro, they defrauded Blue Cross Blue Shield with fraudulent health care claims. At times, he admits to Cabrera’s guilty plea, “he acted with willful and/or willful ignorance.”
Cabrera’s cronies paid bribes to patient recruiters who provided the people needed for claims regarding services never rendered. One patient, SB, arrived at Marlins Medical Center and underwent a one-time allergy test. She signed the documents that Pérez Acosta gave her and the scammers converted them into claims for five visits to ERMD, which is in West Miami-Dade. She told investigators that she never came back for the results and that the pet dander allergy tests were “medically unnecessary because she has a dog.”
Cabrera, 64, had been licensed since July 9, 1993.
Yvelice Villaman-Bencosme, Hialeah/Pembroke Pines
While working at Unlimited Medical Research from 2013 to 2016, Villaman-Bencosme falsified data from a clinical trial for a childhood asthma drug.
Villaman-Bencosme has been in federal prison since March following pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud. His release date is September 11, 2026.