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[MM Curator Summary]: Barb Martin nabbed $2.5M for a personal care services scam using her biz Legacy Consumer Directed Services.
ST. LOUIS – A St. Charles woman will spend nearly five years in federal prison for her role in fraud schemes involving Missouri’s Medicaid program and the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).
Prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Eastern District of Missouri said Barbara Martin, 63, pleaded guilty on June 28 to conspiracy to commit health care fraud and bank fraud conspiracy.
Martin was the administrator for Legacy Consumer Directed Services, which fraudulently enrolled in 2013 in the state’s Medicaid program to provide personal care services. Martin used her daughter’s name, Zamika Well, on the application to conceal her own involvement and sister’s role, Margo Taylor, as the people who ran the day-to-day operations.
Had Martin used her name or Taylor’s name, the application would not have been approved because they did not meet the enrollment criteria. Prosecutors said Martin falsely checked “no” on the application when asked if the applying provider had ever been convicted of a crime.
Between May 2014 and September 2020, Legacy billed the state’s Medicaid program more than $2.5 million. Martin admitted that some of that money was for care that was never provided. Martin, Walls, and another child not named in court documents used that money for trips to Miami, Las Vegas, or Atlanta. Martin claimed they were providing personal care services for Medicaid clients, and Wells lived in Atlanta at the time.
Martin and Wells also submitted a fraudulent PPP loan application for Legacy. Martin lied when claiming the loan would be used to pay salaries, mortgage or lease payments, and utility bills. She submitted fake payroll data to support the claim. When Legacy went out of business, she filed an application seeking forgiveness of the loan.
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A U.S. District Court judge sentenced Martin to four years and nine months, and ordered her to repay $2,566,989 to Missouri’s Medicaid program and $58,295 to the U.S. Small Business Administration.
Zamika Wells, 38, pleaded guilty June 16 to the same charges as her mother. She was sentenced Sept. 21 to 15 months in prison and ordered to pay $127,491 in restitution.
Taylor, 66, pleaded guilty on July 11 to two counts of health care fraud and will be sentenced on Oct. 19.
Clipped from: https://fox2now.com/news/missouri/st-charles-woman-sentenced-for-2-5m-missouri-medicaid-fraud/