American Greed Episode 21: Skin Doctor Takes His Cut | Revolutionary Guru of Greed

Case File

Case 1: Skin Doctor Takes His Cut

  • The Practice
  • Dr. Michael Rosin has a lucrative Sarasota, Florida dermatology practice. He specializes in Mohs Surgery, a highly effective procedure for skin cancer. He performs dozens of surgeries on his Medicare patients and builds a multi-million dollar practice.
  • The Suspicious Patient
  • Ellen Murray has a history of skin cancers. She seeks help from Dr. Rosin. During a period of seven years, he continually finds more cancer and performs more surgeries. Murray becomes suspicious. She takes her biopsy slides to an outside laboratory. The results are shocking.
  • The Office Manager
  • Carolyn Ferrara suspects the worst when patients continually undergo cancer surgery... one person had 122 procedures! Ferrara joins Murray in blowing the whistle on a mild-mannered doctor and his outrageous pattern of abuse.

Case 2: Revolutionary Guru of Greed

  • Tropical Tax Haven
  • Panama. One of the world's largest offshore financial havens. A tropical paradise where the ultra-wealthy keep assets far from government reach. And, the site of Marc Harris' new business venture.
  • The Revolutionary
  • Marc Harris opens "The Harris Organization" in Panama City. He claims to be a specialist in offshore tax havens. Harris markets to the small investor... a way for them to protect their assets... just like the rich and famous. Harris believes the I.R.S. is the devil reincarnated.
  • The Fall of an Empire
  • Business appears to be booming... Harris claims to manage a billion dollars. But, Harris feels the heat in his tropical paradise. The feds are following the money trail. As his empire crumbles, Harris goes on the lam…running straight into a trap!

Web Extras

  • Dr. Michael Rosin is a well-respected community member, family man, and dermatologist in Sarasota, Florida. But that all comes crashing down when it’s revealed that he has been preying on the elderly in a scheme to defraud the government out of $3.7 million.

    A respected doctor. Trusting patients. Dr. Michael Rosin runs a thriving dermatology practice specializing in a highly effective procedure for skin cancer. But, Dr. Rosin’s surgery isn’t just a cancer treatment. It’s a goldmine.

  • Investigators found that over a five and a half year period from 1998 to 2004, Dr. Rosin diagnosed over 99% of the biopsies he performed as cancerous…and he kept a log. This page is representative of hundreds of pages in Dr. Rosin’s biopsy logbooks. Names have been blurred, but on the right hand column is listed the part of the body biopsied, and the “BCC” written next to it stands for the diagnosis of that biopsy: Basal Cell Carcinoma. Every biopsy on the page has it.

    Investigators found that over a five and a half year period from 1998 to 2004, Dr. Rosin diagnosed over 99% of the biopsies he performed as cancerous...and he kept a log.

  • He proclaims himself "King of the Offshore World." Marc Harris promises financial freedom in paradise... a way to keep assets out of the reach of government. But, the "guru" is running a ponzi scheme and bilking clients out of millions of dollars.

    Marc Harris promises financial freedom in paradise: a way to keep assets out of the reach of government. But the “guru” is running a ponzi scheme and bilking clients out of millions!

  • Carl Dilley was hired by Marc Harris to organize the accounting and back office systems of The Harris Organization in the mid-1990s. As a result, he found the company to be operationally insolvent at best. This memo he wrote to Harris and other THO executives relates these concerns. Fearing that he would be caught up in the legal ramifications of the organization, Dilley left the company just a couple months after writing the memo.

    Carl Dilley was hired to organize the accounting of The Harris Organization in the mid-1990s. He found the company to be operationally insolvent at best. This memo relates these concerns.