{"id":60028,"date":"2024-11-21T15:05:06","date_gmt":"2024-11-21T15:05:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nigerdeltanews.ng\/nigerian-man-jailed-six-years-in-u-s-for-6m-medicaid-fraud\/"},"modified":"2024-11-21T15:05:06","modified_gmt":"2024-11-21T15:05:06","slug":"nigerian-man-jailed-six-years-in-u-s-for-6m-medicaid-fraud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nigerdeltanews.ng\/nigerian-man-jailed-six-years-in-u-s-for-6m-medicaid-fraud\/","title":{"rendered":"Nigerian man jailed six years in U.S for $6m medicaid fraud"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

A United States-based Nigerian, Ifeanyi Ozoh, has been sentenced to six years in federal prison for orchestrating a $6 million bribery and kickback scheme targeting the Medicaid insurance program.<\/p>\n

The U.S. District Chief Judge Randy Crane also ordered Ozoh, 54, to pay $4.9 million in restitution to Medicaid and serve three years of supervised release following his imprisonment.<\/p>\n

The sentencing was confirmed by U.S. Attorney Alamdar Hamdani in a statement published on the Department of Justice\u2019s website on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Ozoh, a resident of Houston, Texas, was found guilty of paying bribes to marketers to secure Medicaid patients for Floss Family Dentalcare Centre, where he worked.<\/p>\n

The patients were fraudulently referred under the pretence of receiving dental treatment. The clinic subsequently submitted false claims to Medicaid, billing the insurance program over $6 million and receiving $4 million in reimbursements.<\/p>\n

Testimony during the trial revealed that Ozoh paid marketers between $20 and $100 for every Medicaid-insured child referred to Floss. Witnesses described clandestine transactions, with Ozoh reportedly placing illegal cash kickbacks on vending machines to avoid detection.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne clinic manager testified that she repeatedly warned Ozoh about the illegality of paying marketers,\u201d the U.S. Attorney\u2019s statement disclosed.<\/p>\n

After a three-day trial in February, a federal jury took just one hour to convict Ozoh on all counts of conspiracy and kickback violations.<\/p>\n

The overwhelming evidence presented at trial included records of over $163,000 in bribes paid to marketers and bonuses Ozoh received for meeting patient quotas.<\/p>\n

From 2020 to 2021, the clinic billed Medicaid millions of dollars for dental services, many of which were never provided.<\/p>\n

Ozoh has been allowed to remain on bond and will voluntarily surrender to a Bureau of Prisons facility at a later date.<\/p>\n

The U.S. Attorney emphasized the judgment as a warning against Medicaid fraud, reaffirming the government\u2019s commitment to protecting public resources and holding violators accountable.<\/p>\n

Nigerian man jailed six years in U.S for $6m medicaid fraud<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A United States-based Nigerian, Ifeanyi Ozoh, has been sentenced to six years in federal prison for orchestrating a $6 million…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":60029,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26153,384,15,5918],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-medicaid-fraud","category-metro","category-news","category-u-s"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nigerdeltanews.ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nigerdeltanews.ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nigerdeltanews.ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nigerdeltanews.ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nigerdeltanews.ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nigerdeltanews.ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60028\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nigerdeltanews.ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nigerdeltanews.ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nigerdeltanews.ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nigerdeltanews.ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}