New Orleans Woman Sentenced for Aiding and Abetting Health Care Fraud

U.S. Attorney Kenneth A. Polite announced that EVELYN ODOMS, age 65, of New Orleans, was sentenced today after previously pleading guilty to aiding and abetting health care fraud.

U.S. District Judge Susie Morgan sentenced ODOMS to three years probation, a special assessment of $100, and restitution in the amount of $2,055.

On March 12, 2015, ODOMS was indicted along with 18 other defendants in a 26-count indictment charging approximately $30,052,295 in Medicare fraud and the BP fraud.

According to court documents, Abide billed Medicare for providing home health services to a patient at Abide for about five years.  During that time period, ODOMS, a licensed practical nurse, was supposed to teach the patient how to treat and handle different diagnoses.  But ODOMS never observed the patient exhibit symptoms of the diagnoses and never taught the patient about the diagnoses.  ODOMS falsely documented services she was supposed to provide to the patient, documentation that Medicare relied upon to regulate Medicare providers.  Abide relied on ODOMS’s compromised independent medical observations and ethics to participate in the ongoing health care fraud scheme perpetrated by Abide and Odoms’s co-defendants. 

U.S. Attorney Polite praised the work of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in investigating this matter.  Assistant U.S. Attorneys Patrice Harris Sullivan, Sharan Lieberman, and Andre Lagarde are in charge of the prosecution.