Colombo mobster busted in Florida for medicare fraud
Thomas “Tom Mix” Farese, the reputed Colombo crime family’s consigliere, has gotten into trouble again with the feds in Florida, authorities say. This week, Farese and three associates in the durable medical equipment business were charged with swindling millions of dollars out of the Medicare program for senior citizens. They’re accused of submitting false bills to the taxpayer-funded program for unnecessary braces and paying kickbacks to telemedicine companies in exchange for supplying a pipeline of patients and physicians. Farese, 82, and the other defendants made their first appearances in federal court in Fort Lauderdale on Wednesday. Farese, who authorities say has been a notorious fixture in the mob rackets in New York and South Florida for decades, pleaded guilty last month to a money-laundering charge in a similar federal case in New Jersey that alleged a $93 million healthcare fraud scheme against Medicare and other government programs. He faces sentencing in July. Broward conspirators: feds Farese, who formerly owned a luxury townhome in Delray Beach and now lives in Florida, is accused of conspiring with Parkland couple Ed and Robbyn Cannatelli and Virgina Lockett, of Margate, to use a handful of medical equipment “fronts” to submit false Medicare bills for knee, back and wrist braces, according to an indictment. The indictment, filed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jay G. Trezevant, says the Florida fronts — Embrace All, Progressive Medical and Advance Medical — were owned by Ed Cannatelli, Farese and his longtime Colombo family associate, Patsy Truglia, who was charged in a related case in 2021. Truglia, formerly of Parkland, pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud federal healthcare programs, including Medicare, and was sentenced to 15 years in prison and ordered to repay $18 million to the U.S. government. The latest indictment does not mention that Farese is connected to the Colombo crime family in New York, though his role as its consigliere has been widely reported by news media. The Miami Herald was unable to locate defense lawyers for the Cannatellis, Farese and Lockett because their case, returned by a grand jury in the Middle District of Florida based in Tampa, had not been filed in the federal court system. The Herald obtained the indictment from that office. Life and times of Tommy Farese Starting in the 1970s, Farese has been involved in an array of South Florida rackets — such as using his shipping company to smuggle marijuana and his strip clubs to launder drug money — years before expanding into the hotbed of healthcare fraud. Farese first made headlines in Fort Lauderdale following his 1978 indictment for being the “mastermind” of a large marijuana smuggling and distribution operation under the cover of his Olympic Shipping Lines operation, according to a story in the Florida Bulldog. The case was sensational because it included allegations of bribery against a pair of former state representatives that arose out of conversations tape-recorded by police who bugged Farese’s office. Organized crime strike force prosecutors convicted Farese in 1980. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison, but was released in 1994. Soon after, undercover Drug Enforcement Administration agents posing as dealers began targeting him with a plan to wash more than $1 million through his strip clubs. Farese had hidden interests in Hialeah’s Club Pink Pussycat, Goldfinger in Sunrise, and Club Diamonds in West Palm Beach. Agents said that for a fee Farese laundered the purported drug money for them. Farese was charged with racketeering in January 1996, and later pleaded guilty and got 10 years. He was released from prison in 2005. Farese was arrested again in January 2012, this time on money-laundering charges. Truglia was charged with him. After a December 2012 trial in federal court in Brooklyn, Farese was acquitted but Truglia was convicted. The New York Daily News reported the case was “severely hobbled by the absence of two mob rats who secretly recorded the evidence, but were kept off the witness stand because they had been engaging in misconduct while working as informants.”
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/crime/article308464880.html#storylink=cpy
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