Baton Rouge Man Guilty of Health Care Fraud

BATON ROUGE, LA—United States Attorney Donald J. Cazayoux, Jr. announced that BENJAMIN AMADI, age 54, of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, pled guilty last week before U.S. District Court Judge James J. Brady to health care fraud.

The indictment, filed April 28, 2010, arose from a health care fraud scheme involving a company known as Liberty Medical Services, LLC (“Liberty”), which was engaged in the business of providing power wheelchairs and other durable medical equipment to Medicare beneficiaries in the Baton Rouge area. AMADI owned, operated, and managed Liberty. The indictment alleges that AMADI, through Liberty, engaged in a scheme to defraud the Medicare program by submitting false and fraudulent claims to Medicare for equipment that had not been provided and was medically unnecessary. Specifically, the indictment alleges that AMADI routinely submitted claims representing to Medicare that Liberty had provided a beneficiary with an extra heavy-duty power wheelchair, designed for beneficiaries weighing more than 600 pounds, when in fact Liberty had purchased and provided a much less expensive wheelchair. The indictment further alleges that AMADI submitted false claims totaling approximately $2.8 million and that, between October 2007 and October 2008, AMADI withdrew more than $470,000 in cash from Liberty’s corporate account.

As a result of his guilty plea, AMADI faces a maximum sentence of imprisonment of 10 years. AMADI will be ordered to pay full restitution and may also forfeit property traceable to the gross proceeds from his crime. A sentencing date has not yet been set by the court.

The investigation of this matter was conducted by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Louisiana Attorney General’s Office. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Alan A. Stevens. The case was brought as part of the Medicare Fraud Strike Force, supervised by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Louisiana and the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section.

To learn more about the Health Care Fraud Prevention and Enforcement Action Team (HEAT), go to: www.stopmedicarefraud.gov.