South Florida man pleads guilty to Medicare fraud; received over half million in kickbacks

A Fort Lauderdale man pleaded guilty in federal court in northern Florida on Monday for his role in a Medicare fraud scheme involving at-home Covid-19 tests, where he received more than half a million dollars in kickbacks, federal prosecutors said.

Kevin Karl Wills, Jr., 48, and a co-conspirator identified in the federal charging document by the initials C.A.S. co-owned and ran Meta Laboratory Consulting LLC, which was based in Lantana in Palm Beach County. Through the company, they solicited “marketers” to illegally receive Medicare beneficiary identifying information, the charging document said.

Wills Jr. and his co-conspirator then created “consulting” agreements with various medical service providers, where the “marketers” gave the providers lists of people who receive Medicare benefits. The medical providers shipped over-the counter Covid-19 tests for those people and billed Medicare for them, but none of the beneficiaries had actually requested the tests, federal prosecutors said.

The medical providers paid Wills Jr.’s company and the “marketers” a set amount for each Medicare beneficiary, the charging document said, but only paid them if Medicare reimbursed the claim.

A provider named in the document as SWL Services, based in Jacksonville, had agreed to pay Wills Jr.’s company $29 for each Covid-19 test kit SWL Services processed and shipped and in a later agreement set the price at $34.80 per test.

Wills Jr. and his co-conspirator submitted 152,000 fraudulent claims to Medicare, resulting in a total of $14.4 million in reimbursements, the charging document said. They also used the “marketers” to sell identifying information of Medicare beneficiaries to SWL Services for $15 or $25 per person.

Wills Jr. alone received a total in kickbacks of $652,312, which he will forfeit to the government, prosecutors said in the news release. His sentencing date has not yet been scheduled. He faces up to five years in prison.

The owners of SWL Services pleaded guilty in March and will be sentenced next week, the news release said. One of the people who worked as a “marketer” pleaded guilty in August and will be sentenced in April 2025.