Miami doctor pleads guilty to falsifying clinical trial data for asthma meds

A Miami pediatrician has pleaded guilty to falsifying clinical trial data for an asthma medication for children and defrauding a pharmaceutical company that commissioned the research. Dr. Yvelice Villaman-Bencosme, 64, admitted in a federal plea agreement Friday that she conducted the purported clinical trials at Unlimited Medical Research in Miami, which were designed to investigate the safety and efficiency of the medication for children between the ages of 4 and 11.

Villaman-Bencosme, whose state medical license was issued in 1993 and shows she has staff privileges at Miami Children’s Hospital, faces between five and seven years at her sentencing on a wire fraud conspiracy charge in March before U.S. District Judge Beth Bloom. The physician also must pay a forfeiture judgment of $174,000, according to her plea agreement with the Justice Department. “Dr. VillamanBencosme regrets her conduct and has accepted responsibility for her wrongdoing,” her defense attorney, Hector Flores, said Monday.

A co-defendant, Lisett Raventos, a former study coordinator at Unlimited Medical Research, also pleaded guilty to the same conspiracy charge in November and faces about three years in prison along with a forfeiture judgment of $65,000, court records show. Two other defendants charged in the case are Maytee Liedo and Jessica Palacio.

In a statement filed with her plea agreement, Villaman-Bencosme admitted that between 2013 and 2016 she fabricated medical records to make it look like the young asthma patients participated in scheduled clinical trials at Unlimited Medical Research.