to successfully rip off the public...
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JEB BUSH. In 1987, Miguel Recarey, a longstanding business associate of Tampa Mafia boss Santos Trafficante, fled the U.S. under three indictments for labor racketeering, illegal wiretapping, and Medicare fraud.1 His firm, International Medical Centers (IMC), which was America’s largest health maintenance organization for the elderly and which had received $1 billion in Medicare funds, collapsed.2 Recarey’s HMO left $222 million in unpaid bills,3 and was suspected of up to $100 million in Medicare fraud.4 “IMC is the classic case of embezzlement of government funds,” said William Teich, who headed the U.S. Office of Labor Racketeering in Miami. Teich called it a “bust-out operation” where money was “drained out the back door” and disappeared down “a black hole.”5
But in 1985, Recarey had faced a major obstacle to building his Medicare empire: a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) regulation that restricted an HMO to drawing no more than 50% of its revenue from Medicare.6 Jeb Bush came to the rescue: he called both HHS Secretary Margaret Heckler and a top aide, C. McLain Haddow and successfully convinced them to waive the regulation for Recarey, Haddow testified to Congress.7 Bush’s lobbying of HHS took place during the same period that top-level Republican lobbyists whom Recarey had hired for $1 million were also courting HHS for the waiver.8 Bush said that said he did not recall making any calls to Heckler or Haddow, but confirmed that he made one call on Recarey’s behalf to Haddow’s assistant, to secure Recarey a “fair hearing” within HHS.9
Haddow added in a news interview that in November 1984, Jeb had also called Heckler and Haddow for Recarey about another problem - complaints to HHS from doctors and patients about IMC’s medical care and allegations that Recarey had embezzled funds a few years earlier from another hospital.10 Bush had told Haddow that “contrary to any rumors that were floating around concerning Mr. Recarey, that he was a solid citizen from Mr. Bush’s perspective down there
, that he was a good community citizen and a good supporter of the Republican Party.”11
In 1986, the year after he successfully lobbied HHS to allow Recarey’s Medicare business to grow ultimately to a total of $1 billion, Jeb Bush’s small real estate firm received $75,000 from Recarey’s HMO for the purpose of finding it a new headquarters.12 Bush said that the payment was unrelated to his lobbying for Recarey.13 But Bush never did actually locate a headquarters for IMC, and the record suggests that the HMO had already selected the headquarters it ultimately moved into when it hired Bush.14 Jeb confirmed that he received $75,000 from Recarey without closing any real estate deals.15
Jeb’s defaulted loan from Broward Federal Savings and Loan in Sunrise, Florida transpired as follows.16 On February 1, 1985, Broward Federal loaned $4,565,000 to real estate developer J. Edward Houston, secured only by Houston’s personal guarantee. The same day, a company headed by Houston turned around and loaned the same amount to a partnership of Jeb Bush and Miami real estate developer Armondo Codina for them to buy a five-story building in Miami’s financial district.
Curiously, the Bush-Codina partnership was required to repay the loan from Houston “only as, if and to the extent that the cash flow from the building was sufficient to support those payments.” In fact, Bush and Codina made no payments at all on the loan prior to the final default settlement. In 1987 Houston defaulted on the $4.5 million Broward Federal loan, and the S&L sued both him and the Bush-Codina partnership. In an unusual settlement with the FDIC, Bush and Codina were obligated to repay just $500,000 of the loan and got to keep the building in the Miami financial district that collateralized the loan.
In 1991, federal regulators sued the officers and directors of Broward, charging that the loan used by Bush and Codina cost the savings and loan at least $4.97 million and was representative of the association’s negligent lending practices.17 The Bush-Codina loan contributed to the collapse of the Florida S&L, which cost taxpayers $285 million.18
http://www.campaignwatch.org/more1.htm#jebsl