“Three years after more than 60 lawyers, county employees and medical professionals were arrested on charges of bilking Florida’s Miami-Dade County out of millions of dollars through fraudulent personal injury claims, the county has filed a civil racketeering lawsuit against the accused perpetrators and others.” In the 715-page complaint, Miami-Dade County charges that 85 defendants, including nearly 70 South Florida lawyers, were implicated in schemes in which “attorneys who filed personal injury lawsuits against the county paid kickbacks to county risk management employees in return for expedited and inflated settlements. Miami-Dade Police Director Carlos Alvarez has said that county claims adjusters typically received 10 percent of the settlements. The claims against the county generally involve slip and fall accidents on county property, injuries on county buses, accidents with county cars and false arrests.” Defendants dispute some of the indictments as vague and untimely and point out that not all those sued had faced criminal charges earlier. (Matthew Haggman, “Miami-Dade Files Massive RICO Civil Suit”, Miami Daily Business Review, Oct. 8).

Filed under: ethics