The Buffalo News reports....
Probation ordered in Medicaid fraud
A woman whose home health care company defrauded the state of $323,000 in Medicaid reimbursements avoided jail time Thursday in Niagara County Court. Diane Fernandez, 53, of Chestnut Ridge Road, was placed on three years’ probation so she can continue to support her four children and make restitution payments, Judge Sara Sheldon Sperrazza said. The longest jail term she could have received was one year.
Fernandez had pleaded guilty June 11 to second-degree offering a false instrument for filing, while her company, TBI Services, entered a plea to fourth-degree grand larceny. Sperrazza gave the company an unconditional discharge. TBI Services “is defunct, has no assets,” defense attorney Charles Steinman said. “It would be futile in nature for the court to impose any fine.”
The company was set up to provide home care and personal assistance, such as shopping, to those with brain injuries. Sperrazza said she received dozens of letters supporting Fernandez. “She did actually provide amazing service, but on the money side of it, she got greedy,” the judge said.
A joint investigation by the state attorney general’s office and the Office of the Medicaid Inspector General found that during 2005 and 2006, TBI employees were directed to create records of fictitious service calls so Medicaid could be billed for them. Sperrazza called it “thievery.”
“Some of the people who wrote these heartwrenching letters don’t realize that. They see you as this Joan of Arc figure,” the judge told Fernandez. “You were stealing, pure and simple.”
Fernandez and the prosecutor, Assistant Attorney General Gary Baldauf of the Buffalo Medicaid fraud unit, declined to comment on the sentencing. Baldauf said in court that Fernandez had agreed to release $250,754.89 that the state Health Department was holding for her company to be released as part of the restitution, leaving her owing the state $72,700.11.
Sperrazza ordered Fernandez to repay at least $1,000 a month. A probation officer had recommended a $4,400 monthly payment, but Sperrazza said with four children and a husband and a $40,000-a-year job, such a payment level would merely set Fernandez up for a probation violation.
Source: http://www.buffalonews.com/cityregion/niagaracounty/story/425988.html
Probation ordered in Medicaid fraud
A woman whose home health care company defrauded the state of $323,000 in Medicaid reimbursements avoided jail time Thursday in Niagara County Court. Diane Fernandez, 53, of Chestnut Ridge Road, was placed on three years’ probation so she can continue to support her four children and make restitution payments, Judge Sara Sheldon Sperrazza said. The longest jail term she could have received was one year.
Fernandez had pleaded guilty June 11 to second-degree offering a false instrument for filing, while her company, TBI Services, entered a plea to fourth-degree grand larceny. Sperrazza gave the company an unconditional discharge. TBI Services “is defunct, has no assets,” defense attorney Charles Steinman said. “It would be futile in nature for the court to impose any fine.”
The company was set up to provide home care and personal assistance, such as shopping, to those with brain injuries. Sperrazza said she received dozens of letters supporting Fernandez. “She did actually provide amazing service, but on the money side of it, she got greedy,” the judge said.
A joint investigation by the state attorney general’s office and the Office of the Medicaid Inspector General found that during 2005 and 2006, TBI employees were directed to create records of fictitious service calls so Medicaid could be billed for them. Sperrazza called it “thievery.”
“Some of the people who wrote these heartwrenching letters don’t realize that. They see you as this Joan of Arc figure,” the judge told Fernandez. “You were stealing, pure and simple.”
Fernandez and the prosecutor, Assistant Attorney General Gary Baldauf of the Buffalo Medicaid fraud unit, declined to comment on the sentencing. Baldauf said in court that Fernandez had agreed to release $250,754.89 that the state Health Department was holding for her company to be released as part of the restitution, leaving her owing the state $72,700.11.
Sperrazza ordered Fernandez to repay at least $1,000 a month. A probation officer had recommended a $4,400 monthly payment, but Sperrazza said with four children and a husband and a $40,000-a-year job, such a payment level would merely set Fernandez up for a probation violation.
Source: http://www.buffalonews.com/cityregion/niagaracounty/story/425988.html
