Harlingen Couple Sentenced in $14 Million Medicare Fraud: Husband Gets 110 Months, Wife 80 Months
A Harlingen, Texas, couple who ran a durable medical equipment company that defrauded Medicare of roughly $14 million have been sentenced to federal prison, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Texas announced. Jeremiah Yzaguirre, 47, received 110 months, and his wife, Maria Luisa Yzaguirre, 47, received 80 months.
U.S. District Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. imposed the sentences. Both must also serve three years of supervised release and were ordered to pay $9,248,976 in restitution to Medicare and a $25,000 fine.
The couple operated Southwest Medical Homepatient in Harlingen, enrolled in Medicare as a provider of durable medical equipment and services that purported to supply parts and repairs for power wheelchairs. Prosecutors said that between 2019 and 2023 the couple caused Medicare to be billed approximately $14 million for power wheelchairs, parts and repairs for only 37 individual beneficiaries, repeatedly billing hundreds of parts and repairs for a single beneficiary's wheelchair. For one beneficiary alone, they billed about $736,072 by falsely claiming to have replaced expensive parts hundreds of times.
As part of their guilty pleas, both admitted they were paid millions of dollars for parts and repairs never actually performed or provided, and that proceeds went to cryptocurrency, a vehicle, electronics, collectibles and purses. The couple pleaded guilty on April 22, 2025. The FBI and the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General were among the agencies that investigated the case, prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Andrew Swartz and Ana Cano.
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 电动轮椅（资料图）。该案诈骗标的即为电动轮椅零部件与维修费用。 Photo: Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
