Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Headline fraud

The Herald has this headline today:

Miami doctor, nurse guilty of Medicare fraud


and this tag line under it:

The brothers who owned the clinic involved in an $11 million Medicare scam fled to Cuba. A doctor and nurse who worked in the clinic were convicted of fraud.

Yes, that's all true, but two of the four defendants at trial were acquitted. Shouldn't the headline be a bit more even-handed? Here's Frank Quintero, the defense lawyer for one of the acquitted defendants:

But while the physician and nurse were found guilty by the federal jury, Beatriz Delgado, a receptionist, and Angel Rodriguez, a medical assistant, were acquitted.
''There's no question that Medicare fraud is a huge problem in South Florida, but you cannot claim that everybody who is working in a clinic is part of that fraud,'' said attorney Frank Quintero, who represented Angel Rodriguez. ``We had a very smart jury in this trial and they saw through the lack of evidence as far as my client is concerned.''


Here's the rest of the article.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dale Paco!

Anonymous said...

You used "even-handed" in the same sentence as the Miami Herald. What's wrong with you?