Miami Criminal Law Blog

Earlier this year a young man's life was changed forever when he was accused and convicted in a Miami-Dade criminal court of committing the armed robbery of a convenient store. It was assumed that his conviction was determined by an impartial jury of his peers, but that conviction has been called into question after it was discovered that one of the jurors had been tweeting during the trial.

Prior to the start of the trial, the jury was instructed to refrain from using any social media while serving as a juror. One juror -- and Miami filmmaker -- felt that the rules did not apply to him and took the liberty of sending several tweets and posting on Facebook during the trial. The issue was brought to the attention of Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Jose Fernandez, and he has called the filmmaker into court to explain his actions and their consequences.

Medicare fraud is a type of fraud that involves the collection of money from the Medicare healthcare program under false or fraudulent claims. Since there are many types of healthcare claims, many claims that are fraudulent are not reported and many claims that are suspected as fraud are legitimate claims.

Medicare fraud has been alleged against 107 suspects in a nationwide investigation that includes Florida residents. The suspects consist of doctors, social workers and nurses who are allegedly involved in a fraud scheme that amounts to $452 million. This is the largest suspected Medicare fraud scheme in U.S. history.

Healthcare and insurance fraud are two types of fraud that can occur in many different areas. This type of fraud usually involves multiple parties that each play a role in the alleged scheme; some may even be unaware that they are participating in the commission of fraud. Recently, multiple people were arrested in a relation to an insurance fraud scheme in Florida.

The alleged insurance fraud scheme involved a licensed massage therapist, 14 patients of a massage clinic and a physician's assistant. The insurance fraud arrests were based on the two criminal charges of insurance fraud and grand theft. The insurance theme was detected through the use of an undercover sting that was conducted by Florida police. The undercover officers were part of the Miami-Dade Public Corruption Investigations Bureau.

When someone confesses to committing a violent crime it means that they are guilty, right? WRONG. Although it may be hard for some of us to believe, false confessions often occur. Police interrogations can last for hours while an already frightened person is deprived of food and confined in a small space with no windows. This atmosphere alone often causes people to become confused during questioning or even cause them admit to things that are untrue.

When you add threats or coercion by police, false confessions become even more likely. This was the topic of a recent documentary called Scenes of a Crime, produced in 2011. The film highlights the story of a young man who was threatened into confession that he had abused his own son.