Former Broward Health executive pleads guilty in kickback scheme
A former Broward Health executive pleaded guilty to accepting $427,000 in kickbacks.
Brian Bravo, 46, of Pembroke Pines, admitted he took the money, $150,000 of it in cash, from two vendors and a consultant for other vendors in exchange of awarding them contracts for Broward Health goods and services, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a news release.
He pleaded guilty to a federal conspiracy charge on Tuesday in federal court in Fort Lauderdale.
For 15 years, Bravo worked as the procurement officer for the hospital district that operates with taxpayer dollars. In that role, he decided which vendors would provide goods and services to Broward Health, including health care products, linens, compression sleeves and printer repairs.
In 2015, Bravo steered kickback payments to designated bank accounts in order to conceal the illegal activity, the release said.
After he was contacted by the FBI, Bravo was fired from Broward Health — and given six months’ severance, about $75,000.
Bravo faces up to five years in prison at his sentencing, scheduled for Aug. 12 before U.S. District Judge Raag Singhal.
Bravo originally was charged with bribery, money laundering and extortion and pleaded not guilty to those charges. If convicted at trial, he could have faced up to 60 years in prison and a $1.25 million fine.
The indictment, first reported by the Florida Bulldog website, outlines a scheme that started in 2008 and went on until 2015. It involved four companies, two unnamed co-conspirators and at least one family member.
Three of the companies accused of paying kickbacks to Bravo received a total of $22 million in procurement contracts from the hospital district during the scheme.
The first company, not identified in the indictment, is based out of Port Reading, N.J. Its owner and founder, identified in court records only as “Co-conspirator #1,” started paying Bravo cash kickbacks in exchange for favorable contracts back in 2008.
By 2014, the indictment says, Bravo wanted more than could be comfortably exchanged in cash. So Co-conspirator #1 started cutting him checks, payable to a company owned by a relative of Bravo’s, also not identified in the indictment.
By 2015, the year in which the authorities got wind of the scheme, Bravo had steered some $14.4 million toward the New Jersey company, in exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars of kickbacks.
The charges against Bravo come as another strike against a troubled hospital system that had achieved some stability after years of turmoil.
The institution has been under federal supervision since paying a $70 million fine in 2015 over running an improper payment system for physicians. The system’s chief executive, Dr. Nabil El Sanadi, killed himself in 2016, touching off years of instability and sagging morale, with a string of acting CEOs, lawsuits and bureaucratic warfare among board members, staff and its general counsel.
Word of Bravo’s alleged malfeasance first leaked out after the suicide when Wayne Black, a private investigator hired by El Sanadi, sent an email to the system’s general counsel claiming that the FBI was investigating Bravo.
The last Broward Health CEO, Gino Santorio, whose two years of leadership had brought a measure of stability to the system, announced late last year he was resigning to take the top job at Mount Sinai Medical Center of Greater Miami.
Shane Strum, the former chief of staff for Gov. Ron DeSantis, was selected as the new CEO earlier this year.
The taxpayer-supported system, which operates hospitals and outpatient center in the northern half of Broward County, is overseen by a seven-member board appointed by the governor. The Broward Health system includes Broward Health Medical Center, Broward Health North, Broward Health Imperial Point, Broward Health Coral Springs, Salah Foundation Children’s Hospital as well as urgent cares and community health services.