"A federal jury on Monday convicted Jorge Perez, a Miami businessman who masterminded the takeovers of rural hospitals in Missouri, Kansas and other states, of conspiracy to commit health care fraud following a 24-day trial in Jacksonville, Florida. The government charged that Perez and his brother, Ricardo Perez, fraudulently billed insurance companies $1.4 billion, using the hospitals they acquired or managed, for laboratory testing services that were mostly performed by outside laboratories."