Remaining Social Service Agency Workers Sentenced for Deadly Fraud Scheme

PHILADELPHIA—The last two defendants in the MultiEthnic Behavioral Health Services, Inc. (“MEBH”) fraud scheme were sentenced today by U.S. District Court Judge Stewart Dalzell. Julius Murray, 52, of Upper Darby, PA, was sentenced to 132 months in prison, and restitution of $316,000. Mariam Coulibaly, 41, of Brookhaven, Pennsylvania, was sentenced to 135 months in prison and must pay restitution in the amount of $1.044 million. MEBH supervisors Mickal Kamuvaka and Solomon Manamela were sentenced yesterday to 210 months and 168 months, respectively. All four defendants were convicted at trial in March. Five co-defendants pleaded guilty.

The fraud scheme carried out by MEBH supervisors and caseworkers between 2000 and 2006 involved falsifying documents to hide the fact that the agency was not fulfilling its city contract to visit the families of at-risk children. Among the clients that MEBH neglected was 14-year-old Danieal Kelly, who suffered from cerebral palsy and died of starvation and neglect. Murray was the Kelly family’s caseworker. The fraud involved billing the City for the services that MEBH was contracted to provide. Approximately 95 percent of those funds were provided by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’s Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (“TANF”) program.

“This case was tremendously important for a number of reasons, not the least of which is to serve as a reminder to all those who are responsible for the care of at-risk children that they must not cut corners with their work,” said United States Attorney Zane David Memeger. “We are very gratified by the lengthy sentences for these defendants, who not only abandoned their own responsibilities to the many at-risk children whose welfare was entrusted to their care, but encouraged their staff to do the same.”

All restitution in this case is joint and several among all nine defendants and is paid to the federal Crime Victims Fund, which supports thousands of programs for crime victims. Murray has been in custody since his arrest on illegal immigration charges. Coulibaly was immediately remanded.

The case was investigated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Philadelphia Police, and the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office. It is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Bea Witzleben and Vineet Gauri.