RICHMOND, Va. – A Chester female pleaded responsible today to fees of conspiracy to commit wellness care fraud, wellness care fraud, and wire fraud, all stemming from her operation of a Richmond metro-location well being treatment expert services organization.
In accordance to courtroom paperwork, between 2014 and 2021, Sharon Johnson, 58, owned and operated “Sharon Y. Johnson & Associates” (SYJA). Johnson’s corporation purportedly presented Medicaid-reimbursed solutions that involved both equally Provider Facilitator services—supervising a Medicaid recipient’s private care plan and provider— and own treatment services—home well being treatment assist companies developed to allow for a receiver to continue being at house, alternatively than entering a nursing property or group dwelling. Johnson signed up various of her Services Facilitator purchasers, typically without the need of their awareness or knowledgeable consent, to obtain personalized care companies from her enterprise. Johnson used her individual residence in Chester—a solitary-story, a few-bedroom, 1,326-square foot structure—as an unlicensed team property, housing up to a half-dozen Medicaid recipients, in addition to Johnson and one more SYJA personnel, at any offered time.
Among 2014 and 2021, Johnson fraudulently billed Medicaid for particular care products and services purportedly furnished to at the very least 14 of her clients, knowingly distributing timesheets to Medicaid that falsely claimed that certain SYJA aides experienced presented expert services, when, in actuality, all those purported SYJA staff experienced not offered dwelling health care solutions to the clients in concern. To execute this fraud scheme, Johnson and her co-conspirators produced on the web patient portal accounts in the names of her clients, and thereafter assumed individuals patients’ identities when “approving” and routing billing requests for SYJA property well being care providers that experienced not, in reality, been provided.
Independently, Johnson also executed a scheme to defraud the Virginia Retirement Program (VRS) of pension payments compensated by the VRS to one particular of Johnson’s unlicensed team residence citizens. To attain manage in excess of her patient’s fiscal affairs, Johnson submitted fraudulent paperwork to the VRS which includes a “Medical Ability of Attorney” kind, and, soon after her patient’s dying, changed the immediate deposit site of her now-deceased patient’s VRS pension payments to Johnson’s possess lender account. VRS thereafter paid out at least 8 every month pension payments into Johnson’s bank account ahead of belatedly confirming the patient’s death. Johnson, knowing she was not entitled to all those VRS resources, invested individuals payments for her possess reasons.
Johnson is scheduled to be sentenced on April 18, 2023. She faces a highest penalty of 20 yrs in prison. Actual sentences for federal crimes are ordinarily less than the utmost penalties. A federal district court docket choose will figure out any sentence following getting into account the U.S. Sentencing Rules and other statutory components.
Jessica D. Aber, U.S. Lawyer for the Eastern District of Virginia, and Stanley M. Meador, Unique Agent in Demand of the FBI Richmond Subject Workplace, created the announcement soon after U.S. District Decide Hannah M. Lauck approved the plea. The Virginia Medicaid Fraud Regulate Device assisted in the investigation.
Assistant U.S. Lawyers Thomas A. Garnett and Shea Gibbons are prosecuting the case.
A duplicate of this press launch is located on the web site of the U.S. Attorney’s Business for the Japanese District of Virginia. Relevant court documents and information and facts are situated on the web page of the District Court docket for the Japanese District of Virginia or on PACER by exploring for Situation No. 3:22-cr-16.