Owner of Durable Medical Equipment Company Sentenced to Two Years in Prison for Health Care Fraud

            WASHINGTON – Emeka H. Chijioke, 41, formerly of Atlanta, Ga., and Nigeria, was sentenced today to two years in prison on a federal charge stemming from a scheme in which he defrauded the District of Columbia’s Medicaid program out of more than $500,000.

            The announcement was made by U.S. Attorney Jessie K. Liu, Andrew W. Vale, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, and Nicholas DiGiulio, Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG), for the region that includes Washington, D.C.

            Chijioke pled guilty in September 2017, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, to a charge of health care fraud. He was sentenced by the Honorable Senior Judge Paul L. Friedman. The judge ordered Chijioke to pay $552,343 in restitution to the D.C. Medicaid program and an identical amount in a forfeiture money judgment. Following his prison term, Chijioke will be placed on three years of supervised release.

            Chijioke was arrested in December 2016 in Germany and extradited to the United States in April 2017 to face charges in an indictment returned in the District of Columbia.

            According to a statement of offense submitted at the time of the plea, Chijioke was the majority owner, registered agent, and chief executive officer of Mead Medical Group, LLC, a durable medical equipment company organized in Maryland. Mead Medical provided medical equipment supplies, including incontinence supplies and garments, to District of Columbia Medicaid recipients. 

            Beginning in or about 2007 and continuing through 2012, Chijioke engaged in a scheme to defraud D.C. Medicaid by billing for incontinence supplies that were not provided, as detailed in the statement of offense. Chijioke instructed his office staff to complete doctor prescriptions calling for beneficiaries to receive the maximum amount of incontinence supplies allowed by D.C. Medicaid. At the same time, he had his office staff contact the Medicaid recipients to determine from them the actual amount of incontinence supplies they needed, and to provide them with those supplies. Chijioke hired a billing company to submit claims to the Medicaid contractor as if the maximum amount of supplies were provided to the recipients rather than the actual amount supplied.  By arranging for the maximum amount of incontinence supplies to be billed, rather than the amount actually provided, Chijioke obtained approximately $580,000 that he was not entitled to receive from Medicaid.

            During the investigation, $28,600 in funds generated through the scheme was administratively forfeited.

            In announcing the sentence, U.S. Attorney Liu, Assistant Director in Charge Vale, and Special Agent in Charge DiGiulio expressed appreciation for the work performed by Special Agents from the FBI and HHS OIG. They also acknowledged the efforts of those who worked on the case from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, including Assistant U.S. Attorney Diane Lucas of the Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Section; former Assistant U.S. Attorney Lionel André; Paralegal Specialist Jessica Mundi; former Paralegal Specialists Corinne Kleinman, Kaitlyn Kruger, and Christopher Toms, and Litigation Technology Specialist Claudia Gutierrez. Finally, they commended the work of Assistant U.S. Attorneys Virginia Cheatham and Kondi Kleinman, of the Fraud and Public Corruption Section, who prosecuted the case.