A 64-year-old Texas home health agency owner, Paul Njoku, was sentenced to over six years in federal prison for Medicare fraud and identity theft.
During a three-day trial, Njoku was found guilty of all charges after less than two hours of jury deliberation, according to the US Attorney’s office.
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U.S. District Judge Alfred H. Bennett imposed a 75-month sentence, citing Njoku’s “aggravating role in the fraud conspiracy.”
Njoku ran Opnet Health Care Services Inc., also known as P & P Health Care Services.
Njoku and his associates forged the signatures of doctors and nurses to create fraudulent medical records.
They billed Medicare with these fraudulent documents and continued to send them when Medicare sought records.
Between 2015 and 2019, Opnet billed over $400,000 and got over $360,000.
According to trial testimony, Medicare would not have reimbursed these claims if it knew the records were fake or did not exist, as revealed by the US Attorney’s Office.
On May 21, Njoku was convicted of fabricating medical documents, including using doctors’ and nurses’ signatures without their knowledge, some of which were from former employees. The trial also revealed a doctor receiving a bribe to approve potentially needless home health services. Njoku is still on bond and will return to a Federal Bureau of Prisons institution at a later date. The investigation was conducted by the FBI, the Department of Health and Human Services-Office of the Inspector General, and the Texas Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, with Assistant U.S. Attorneys Christian Latham and Kathryn Olson prosecuting the case, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
