District Company Ordered to Pay Back Money It Admitted Overbilling City’s Public Health Department

WASHINGTON—A District of Columbia company that over billed the city’s Department of Public Health by more than $110,000 for services to at-risk teenagers that were never provided was sentenced today to make full restitution, placed on five years probation and ordered to verify all future bills under penalty of perjury, announced U.S. Attorney Jeffrey A. Taylor and Joseph Persichini, Jr., Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office.

The Institute for Behavioral Change and Research, Inc. (“IBCR”) was also sentenced to pay a $400 special assessment and adopt a compliance program if it receives any future government contracts, by the Honorable Paul L. Friedman, U.S. District Judge for the District of Columbia. Although IBCR faced a criminal fine of up to $500,000, the Court agreed with the probation department’s determination that it lacked the ability to pay the fine.

IBCR has no assets and plans to go out of business, according to Dr. Howard Mabry, a licensed psychologist and the company’s chief executive officer. No charges have been brought against Dr. Mabry or any other employees of IBCR.

Under the terms of the plea agreement, after pleading guilty to one count of federal Health Care Fraud on January 13, 2009, IBCR made full restitution by repaying the District of Columbia Department of Public Health the $111,172.11 it over billed the agency.

According to the Statement of the Offense filed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office with the Court, IBCR was a not-for-profit corporation whose mission was to provide health care related services and support to children, adolescents and families with emotional and behavioral problems. IBCR received federal and local grants to provide mental health services to children, adolescents and adults through various programs, one of which was the D.C. CITY Program.

According to the Statement of the Offense, after IBCR received a contract in June 2005 with the D.C. Department of Public Health’s Addiction Prevention and Recovery Administration (“APRA”) to provide health care assistance to D.C. youth who were at risk for drug use and abuse, it began submitting invoices for work that was not performed. Between June 2005 and October 2006, 19 of the 22 invoices IBCR transmitted to APRA sought reimbursement of services that were not provided.

In announcing today’s sentence, U.S. Attorney Taylor and FBI Assistant Director in Charge Persichini commended the work of the FBI as well as the staff of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, including Legal Assistants Lisa Robinson, April Peeler, Jamasee Lucas, and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Thomas Zeno and James A. Mitzelfeld, who prosecuted the case.