Former District Government Employee Sentenced for Receiving Illegal Supplementation of Salary
| U.S. Attorney’s Office September 24, 2010 |
WASHINGTON—A former District of Columbia government employee, Mable Dinkins, was sentenced today to two years’ probation and ordered to perform 100 hours of community service for receiving an illegal supplementation of salary, U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. announced.
Dinkins, 58, of Forestville, Md., pled guilty to the charge on June 11, 2010 in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. She was sentenced today by United States Magistrate Judge John M. Facciola.
As part of her plea agreement, Dinkins admitted that she was an employee between 1995 and 2008 at the Office of Program Operations in the Medical Assistance Administration at the D.C. Department of Health. In that position, she was responsible for the Non-Emergency Transportation Program. As part of her job duties, Dinkins was supposed to use an established rotation to assign companies to provide transportation to Medicaid recipients. Dinkins also answered transportation provider questions, issued prior authorizations for recipients to receive transportation services, and researched billing and claim payment issues for providers.
In December 2007, the owner of a company that provided transportation services to Medicaid recipients admitted paying Dinkins to examine transportation claims from his company in exchange for receiving additional clients. The owner made between 15 and 20 payments to her, ranging from $400 to $2,000 per payment, during 2006 and 2007.
On December 20, 2007, the owner tape-recorded a controlled payment made to Dinkins in the rear parking lot of the District of Columbia Medicaid building at 2100 Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue SE. Dinkins handed the owner an envelope containing copies of claims that she was reviewing for the company. Thereafter, the owner paid Dinkins $250.
Another owner of a transportation company stated that Dinkins had assigned that company several clients who were out of the scheduled rotation for the District of Columbia Medicaid transportation program. A review of the company’s computer revealed an e-mail dated Oct. 3, 2007, from AirTran Airways confirming a flight for Dinkins for Oct. 8, 2007. Payment records indicate the ticket for Dinkins on that flight was paid with that owner’s credit card on Oct. 3, 2007, in the amount of $91.90.
This case was investigated by the FBI’s Washington Field Office, the Office of Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
In announcing the sentence, U.S. Attorney Machen commended the work of the FBI Special Agent from the Washington Field Office, and HHS Special Agent Christopher Steinbauer. He also commended the efforts of Legal Assistant Jared Forney of the Fraud and Public Corruption Section as well as Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas E. Zeno, who prosecuted the case.