United States v. Diego Sanchez (alleged health care fraud case)
After an almost 4 week trial, the jury found Diego Sanchez not guilty on all seven counts of health care fraud and wire fraud in the Southern District of Florida.
A few days earlier, Judge Rudy Ruiz granted a judgment of acquittal on two other counts (money laundering and conspiracy to pay kickbacks).
Diego and his codefendant, Milo Caskey, owned a laboratory in Texas called Innovative Genomics, or IGx. There were two other owners of the lab, Nikita Hermesman and Enrique Perez-Paris. After Nikita pleaded guilty for his conduct related to another lab, he started cooperating against the owners of IGx. And the govt indicted Enrique, Diego and Milo for billing $65 million in genetic testing and COVID-19 testing. Nadir Perez and Omar Palacios were also indicted — they ran pop-up tents in Miami for COVID testing. The government’s theory was that the lab was paying doctors and paying pop-up tents for medically unnecessary genetic and covid tests. They ran over 400,000 PCR tests during the pandemic.
Diego Sanchez had no background in labs, but was recruited to start up the lab by his childhood best friend, Enrique. He was recruited because he had a strong background and finance and was very detail oriented.
Diego and Enrique operated in a joint defense for six months, preparing for trial. About a week before trial, Enrique, who is represented by Ryan Stumphauzer and Matt DellaBetta , decided to plead guilty and flip on his childhood friend, Diego. Omar Palacios also pleaded about a week before trial and cooperated against Diego. Nadir Perez had pled guilty months earlier. Diego and Milo were the last two standing.
Nikita Hermesman was the govt’s first witness and Enrique was their last witness (testifying for 3 days). In between, Nadir and Omar testified, along with expert witnesses, patients, and govt analysts.
Lauren Krasnoff and David Oscar Markus defended Diego Sanchez, who presented a good faith defense. They argued that Diego relied on lawyers (Greenberg Traurig), scientists, doctors, and billers and believed that all of the tests were medically necessary. Instead of relying on reasonable doubt, they argued to the jury that Diego was actually innocent. They took the very risky strategy of waiving attorney client privilege and joint defense privilege at trial, giving the government access to all of the materials from the lawyers and the joint defense.
After the jury reached its verdict, Judge Ruiz commented that the jury was the most attentive that he had seen as a judge in his 13 years on the bench.
“We are so happy for Diego, who had the courage to fight this case even after his friend turned against him and lied to try and save his own skin. We are thankful to the judge and the jury for giving us a fair shake and the opportunity to prove Diego’s innocence.”
David Oscar Markus and Lauren Krasnoff,
partners at Markus/Moss
Lauren gave an incredible opening statement and crossed a number of witnesses, including Omar and Stephen Quindoza (the govt expert who has testified over 100 times for the govt). David closed and crossed Nikita and Enrique.
Lauren Krasnoff, left, and David Oscar Markus, right, attorneys at Markus/Moss, with their client, Diego Sanchez, center.
Podcast
After the win, David Lat had David Markus on his podcast to discuss the trial and other stories.
One of the Firm’s signature cases, David Oscar Markus led the defense team to another first of its kind victory — not guilty verdicts across the board on 
