Sarasota, FL - Doctor That Diagnosed Cancer on Nearly Every Patient Who Came Into his Office Was Sentenced to 22 Years

Sarasota, FL - Former dermatologist Michael Rosin received a 22-year federal prison sentence for defrauding Medicare by performing unnecessary surgeries on elderly patients from the Sarasota area.

Judge William Castagna did not go easy on Rosin, lengthening the doctor's sentence with rulings that Rosin had lied on the stand and caused serious bodily injuries to his victims. So on the doctors 56th birthday, in front of his wife, six of his seven children and members of his Miami Orthodox Jewish community, Rosin was sentence to 22 years and was also ordered to pay $48,866 to patients and $3.6 million to the Medicare trust fund. He had to forfeit another $3.7 million to the government.
A total of 865 elderly patients from the Sarasota area went under Rosin's surgical knife even though biopsy slides seized from his office showed no sign of cancer or were in such poor shape they couldn't be read. A jury convicted Rosin of diagnosing cancer using slides with bubble gum or foam instead of a skin sample. He diagnosed cancer on nearly every patient who came into his office, and almost always removed four layers of skin during surgeries.

But Rosin continued to say he is innocent, even with the judge's ruling that the doctor testified falsely about six different topics. Rosin fought back tears as he apologized to his former patients "for all the things that went on in the office" and told the judge he ultimately had to take responsibility for what went on, and blamed his office workers for the unreadable slides and the slides with bubble gum and foam.

At the end, Rosin's attorney argued that his client -- who owns a $2.7 million home in Sarasota and a $1.5 million home in Miami Beach, has trust funds for his children and donated $650,000 to religious organizations -- lives with his family in "worse than Spartan conditions."