A United States-based Nigerian, Ifeanyi Ozoh, has been sentenced to 72 months in prison for his role in a $6m bribery scheme aimed at defrauding a US insurance company, Medicaid, through kickbacks.
Ozoh was also ordered to pay a sum of $4.9m as restitution to the insurance company with a three-year post-release supervision.
This was announced in a statement by US Attorney Alamdar Hamdani, published on the US Department of Justice website on Wednesday.
PUNCH Metro gathered that 54-year-old Ozoh was sentenced following his conviction for conspiring to pay bribes to bring patients who were registered under the Medicaid insurance to a non-existent clinic in the guise of receiving treatment which was used to receive claims from the insurance company.
The statement read, “A 54-year-old man has been sentenced following his conviction for conspiring to pay and receive health care kickbacks and payment of kickbacks to marketers, announced U.S. Attorney Alamdar S. Hamdani.
“A federal jury deliberated for an hour following a three-day trial before finding Ifeanyi Ozoh guilty on all counts February 14.
“The US District Chief Judge Randy Crane has now ordered Ozoh to serve 72 months in federal prison to be immediately followed by three years of supervised release. Ozoh was also ordered to pay restitution to Medicaid for $4.9 million.
“At the hearing, the court heard Ozoh was integral to the kickback scheme as he bribed marketers and parents to bring their Medicaid-insured children to a sham dental clinic.”
In handing down the sentence, the court noted the overwhelming evidence of Ozoh’s guilt presented at trial.”
Ozoh, who lived in Houston, Texas, reportedly worked for a dental clinic known as Floss Family Dentalcare Centre. The clinic filed an insurance claim from Medicaid for $6m and received a payment of over $4m.
It continued that marketers for the insurance had testified against Ozoh to have paid them between $20 and $100 for each Medicaid-insured child referred to Floss.
“The marketers testified that Ozoh secretly paid them in cash and out of sight of other witnesses, sometimes putting their illegal kickback payments on top of a vending machine down the hall from the clinic.
“One clinic manager testified that she repeatedly warned Ozoh that paying marketers was illegal. The jury also heard that Ozoh paid out over $163,000 in bribes to marketers and received bonuses for reaching a quota of patients.
“From 2020 to 2021, Floss billed Medicaid over $6m. Floss received over $4m on those claims, most of which were predicated on a kickback paid to marketers and for dental services that were not provided.”
The statement concluded that the judgement however permitted Ozoh “to remain on bond and voluntarily surrender to a U.S. Bureau of Prisons facility to be determined in the near future.”