Four Miami-Dade County residents are in custody for allegedly defrauding the Florida Medicaid program out of more than $539,000, according to the State Attorney General’s office.

Investigators with the Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit arrested Juliane Sardina, 39, Elaine Marie Camps, 34, Mayra Romero, 46, and Samara Gabriel Glyn, 27, with help from the Miami-Dade Police.

The defendants are speech pathologists and assistants all employed by The Center for Bilingual Speech and Language Disorders, Inc. in Miami.

“Medicaid fraud and those who commit it steal critical health care dollars from our citizens who actually need medical services,” said Attorney General Bill McCollum. “My Medicaid Fraud Control Unit will continue aggressively pursuing perpetrators to protect these taxpayer-funded resources.”

Working with the Florida Department of Health (DOH), Medicaid Fraud investigators discovered that the defendants conspired to bill the Medicaid program for unsupervised speech therapy with Medicaid recipients, in direct violation of Florida law, DOH regulations and Medicaid program rules. For about three and a half years, the company continued to bill Medicaid for these services and subsequently was paid nearly $540,000 in Medicaid reimbursements.

Camps is charged with two counts of grand theft and two counts of Medicaid fraud, both first-degree felonies, and one count of conspiracy to commit Medicaid fraud, a second-degree felony. If convicted of all charges, she could face up to $50,000 in fines and up to 135 years in prison.

Sardina is charged with two counts of grand theft and two counts of Medicaid fraud, both second-degree felonies, and one count of conspiracy to commit Medicaid fraud, a third-degree felony. If convicted of all charges, she could face up to $45,000 in fines and up to 65 years in prison.

Romero is charged with one count of grand theft, a second-degree felony, and one count of conspiracy to commit Medicaid fraud, a third-degree felony. If convicted of all charges, she could face

up to $15,000 in fines and up to 20 years in prison.

Glyn is charged with one count of Medicaid fraud, a second-degree felony, and one count of grand theft, a third-degree felony. If convicted of all charges, she could face up to $15,000 in fines and up to 20 years in prison.

The defendants were booked into the Miami-Dade County Jail. The case is

being prosecuted by the Attorney General’s Office of Statewide Prosecution.