Woman Sentenced to Prison for Fabricating Hospital Insurance Claims
| U.S. Attorney’s Office January 16, 2013 |
RALEIGH—United States Attorney Thomas G. Walker announced that in federal court today before United States District Judge Terrence W. Boyle that Medina K. Blanton, 39, of Hubert, North Carolina, was sentenced to a one year and one day in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, on the charge of wire fraud, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1343. Blanton was also ordered to make restitution to insurer AFLAC in the amount of $234,295.
Pursuant to the defendant’s plea of guilty to the one-count criminal information, the government proved that between September 2004 and April 2010, Blanton devised a scheme to defraud AFLAC, an insurance company, by filing $234,295 in false hospital confinement indemnity claims. The evidence showed that the defendant and her family members were covered beneficiaries under a hospital confinement indemnity insurance policy (hereafter “the policy”) with AFLAC. In the event that Blanton or her family members were admitted as an inpatient to a hospital, the policy covered Blanton and her family for certain expenses incurred during the period of the hospital admission. The defendant created and filed claims with AFLAC stating that Blanton and certain members of her family had been admitted to a hospital as inpatients for periods of days and weeks when, in fact, Blanton and her family members were not admitted to a hospital as inpatients during the times listed in the claims. To carry out the scheme, Blanton fabricated medical documentation to make it appear as though Blanton and her family members had been admitted to a hospital. Blanton received and deposited funds from AFLAC in the total amount of $234,295 relating to the false and fraudulent claims. Blanton spent the money on her own interests.
Investigation of this case was conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the North Carolina Department of Insurance. Assistant United States Attorney William M. Gilmore represented the United States.