{"id":56622,"date":"2024-11-21T12:55:05","date_gmt":"2024-11-21T12:55:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=56622"},"modified":"2024-11-21T12:55:05","modified_gmt":"2024-11-21T12:55:05","slug":"us-based-nigerian-bags-jail-term-over-6-million-medicaid-fraud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2024\/11\/21\/us-based-nigerian-bags-jail-term-over-6-million-medicaid-fraud\/","title":{"rendered":"US-Based Nigerian Bags Jail Term Over $6 Million Medicaid Fraud"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Gabriella Ogbu<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ifeanyi Ozoh, a 54-year-old Nigerian residing in the United States, has been sentenced to six years in Federal Prison for orchestrating a $6 million bribery and Medicaid fraud scheme.<\/p>\n

In addition to his prison term, Ozoh was ordered to pay $4.9 million in restitution and will serve three years of supervised release after his incarceration.<\/p>\n

The U.S. Department of Justice revealed the verdict in a statement issued by U.S. Attorney Alamdar Hamdani on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The scheme involved paying bribes to marketers and families to recruit Medicaid-insured patients for a sham dental clinic that submitted fraudulent insurance claims.<\/p>\n

Ozoh\u2019s conviction followed a three-day trial in which a federal jury deliberated for just an hour before finding him guilty on February 14.<\/p>\n

U.S. District Chief Judge Randy Crane handed down the sentence, highlighting Ozoh\u2019s pivotal role in the fraudulent operation.<\/p>\n

According to court documents, Ozoh bribed marketers with payments ranging from $20 to $100 for every Medicaid-insured child referred to the fake Floss Family Dentalcare Centre.<\/p>\n

Testimonies revealed that Ozoh often left cash bribes on a vending machine to avoid detection, ignoring warnings from a clinic manager about the illegality of his actions.<\/p>\n

Between 2020 and 2021, the clinic submitted over $6 million in fraudulent claims to Medicaid, receiving more than $4 million in payouts for non-existent dental services.<\/p>\n

Ozoh personally paid over $163,000 in bribes to sustain the scheme.<\/p>\n

While Ozoh has been sentenced, he remains on bond and will voluntarily surrender to a U.S. Bureau of Prisons facility at a later date. Authorities stress that this case underscores the ongoing fight against healthcare fraud in the United States.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Gabriella Ogbu Ifeanyi Ozoh, a 54-year-old Nigerian residing in the United States, has been sentenced to six years in Federal Prison for orchestrating a $6 million bribery and Medicaid fraud scheme. In addition to his prison term, Ozoh was ordered to pay $4.9 million in restitution and will serve three years of supervised release […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":56623,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56622"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56622\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56624,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56622\/revisions\/56624"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}