A Michigan woman has been convicted of $1.4 million Medicare kickback fraud.
Mary Smettler-Bolton, 71, of Oakland County, was convicted of illegal activities related to the federal healthcare scheme.
According to the evidence presented at trial and court documentation, Smettler-Bolton was accused of referring Medicare “beneficiaries to several Metro Detroit home health companies in exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars in kickbacks.”
This litany of fraud resulted in the health companies being complicit in the lattice of kickbacks and payments, which, over four years, resulted in a $1.4 million loss to the federal healthcare cornerstone Medicare.
Michigan woman convicted of $1.4 million Medicare kickback fraud
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the Detroit Metro area and the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG) investigated the case.
Trial Attorney Ryan Elsey and Assistant Chief Shankar Ramamurthy of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section prosecuted the Smettler-Bolton case.
The Fraud Section is a core part of nailing criminal fraud through initiatives like the Health Care Fraud Strike Force Program. The program operates in 27 federal districts and has charged more than 5,400 defendants who have billed federal health care programs and private insurers more than $27 billion.
Smettler-Bolton was convicted of one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States and receive illegal health care kickbacks and one count of violating the federal Anti-Kickback Statute.
She is scheduled to be sentenced on March 3, 2025, and faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison on the conspiracy count and a maximum penalty of 10 years on the kickback count. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.
In related healthcare fraud news, Due reported that a California physician has pleaded guilty to million-dollar healthcare fraud in Los Angeles. Lilit Gagikovna Baltaian is the person at the center of the guilty plea. Over the best of a decade, their crime infringed on the United States Medicare program.
Baltaian was investigated by the Human Services Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for $1,449,050 in damages resulting from fraudulent Medicare claims.
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