Vegas woman pleads guilty in $3.5M Medicare fraud case
A Las Vegas woman has pled guilty to falsely representing to Medicare that she owned a Los Angeles-area durable medical equipment company which collected close to $2 million in federal reimbursement funds.
According to the Departments of Justice and Health and Human Services, Jummal Joy Ibrahim, 55, pled guilty Tuesday before U.S. District Judge George H. King in the Central District of California. She admitted that between January 2006 and September 2009, she allowed her brother, Christopher Iruke, to use her identity to conceal his ownership and control of Contempo, a fraudulent durable medical equipment supply company in Inglewood, Calif., which was used to submit false claims to Medicare for expensive, high-end power wheelchairs and other DME.
[See also: GAO reports $48B in Medicare fraud in 2010.]
According to court documents, Ibrahim allowed her brother and others to use her identity to obtain a Medicare provider number for Contempo, which Iruke then used to submit claims to Medicare. Ibrahim also admitted that she opened a bank account in her name for Contempo and allowed Iruke unrestricted access to the account so that he could transact business in her name. Medicare reimbursement payments to Contempo were deposited into this bank account.
Accoring to investigators, Contempo submitted approximately $3.5 million in false power wheelchair and DME claims to Medicare and was reimbursed approximately $1.7 million.
At sentencing, scheduled for June 13, Ibrahim faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, according to the DOJ.
Iruke was indicted in October 2009 on healthcare fraud charges. His trial is scheduled to begin on May 3.
The case was brought as part of the Medicare Fraud Strike Force, supervised by the Criminal Division's Fraud Section and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California. The Medicare Fraud Strike Force operations are part of the Health Care Fraud Prevention & Enforcement Action Team (HEAT), a joint initiative announced in May 2009 between the Department of Justice and HHS to focus their efforts to prevent and deter fraud and enforce current anti-fraud laws around the country.
Since their inception in March 2007, Strike Force operations in nine districts have charged 1,000 defendants who collectively have falsely billed the Medicare program for more than $2.3 billion, according to HHS officials.
[See also: Attorney General announces 'largest Medicare fraud takedown in history']
