Los Angeles, California – A 33-year-old man from Valley Village has pleaded guilty to defrauding Medicare of nearly $16 million through a web of sham hospice companies, in what prosecutors describe as one of the more elaborate fraud schemes uncovered in Southern California’s health care sector in recent years.
Juan Carlos Esparza admitted Monday in federal court to health care fraud and transactional money laundering. From 2019 to early 2023, he and several co-defendants operated a series of bogus hospice providers—one of which, House of Angels Hospice, he owned outright—to siphon money from Medicare for services that were never delivered and medically unnecessary. The remaining three hospices were nominally owned by foreign nationals, though prosecutors say Esparza and his associates exercised complete control behind the scenes.
To conceal their involvement, the group used the names, Social Security numbers, and other identifying details of foreign nationals to open bank accounts, submit applications to Medicare, and sign commercial leases. The scheme relied heavily on false documentation and burner phones registered under fake identities…