Former employee of Cleveland nonprofit sentenced to prison for fraudulent Medicaid billing practices
Eric King, 35, of Cleveland, was sentenced recently to 36 months in prison by U.S. District Judge Pamela A. Barker, U.S. Attorney Rebecca C. Lutzko announced. King was also sentenced to three years of supervised release, $1,800 in special assessments, and restitution of $483,165.38.
King, a former employee of Eye For Change Youth and Family Services, Inc., a nonprofit corporation in Cleveland, was previously found guilty after a jury trial of 13 counts of health care fraud, one count of false statement relating to health care matters and five counts of aggravated identity theft.
According to court documents, trial testimony and the sentencing hearing, from June 2018 through May 2021, King defrauded Medicaid by causing Medicaid to be billed for services not actually performed or for services that were not actually performed for the amount of time the billing codes reflected; for falsifying progress notes into Medicaid beneficiary electronic records; for creating false progress notes; and for using the identities of clients without authorization to bill Medicaid. As a result of King’s conduct, Medicaid paid over $483,000 for fraudulent billings.
The investigation preceding the indictment was conducted by the Cleveland Division of the FBI, the Department of Health and Human Services -- Office of the Inspector General and the Ohio Attorney General’s Healthcare Fraud Section. This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Edward D. Brydle and Brian M. McDonough and Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan L. Metzler.
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