This archive report was first published on 9 September 2019.
Published on September 9, 2019, a Kenyan-born businessman in the United States was accused of defrauding US’s Medicaid claims amounting to Sh85 million ($815,588) three years ago.
Francis Kimaru, 44, the owner of Compassionate Homecare Inc, was sentenced to two years in prison, with the entire sentence suspended, after pleading guilty in the Worcester Superior Court to two counts of filing false Medicaid claims and one count of larceny of more than Sh25,000 ($250).
The fraudulent billing is alleged to have occurred from 2011 to February 2016.
Kimaru will be placed on administrative probation during the two-year suspended sentence.
Compassionate Homecare Inc, based in Worcester with branches in West Springfield and Lawrence, was indicted along with owner Kimaru and in 2016 on five counts of filing false Medical claims.
The company defrauded the taxpayer-funded MassHealth, which provides Medicaid to the poor and low-income in the state, of Sh85 million ($815,588) through several fraudulent schemes.
Kimaru was charged with the offenses along with the company’s chief operating officer, Wilberto Rodriguez, and Deborah Giordano, a company administrator.
Prosecutors said the company “routinely and knowingly” billed MassHealth “for services that had not been authorized by a doctor; in several instances, the company allegedly altered records to make it appear that patients who had been denied care by a doctor had been approved,” according to the telegram.com.
