Arizona AG reveals 4 new indictments in AHCCCS fraud scandal; $1.5M home, 8 cars seized
Another health care provider, its two owners and its biller were indicted and accused of fraudulently billing Arizona's state Medicaid agency.
The Arizona Attorney General's Office announced in a news release on Wednesday that 30-year-old Shawnjerria Lucas, an unnamed 50-year-old who has not yet been served, and 40-year-old Lavita Verser were each charged with 19 felony fraud-related counts.
According to the news release, Lucas and the unnamed defendant were accused of owning and operating A Better You Wellness Center LLC located off Cactus Road and Interstate 17, a service provider for the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System. The state indicted the company on Oct. 2. The news release stated the two had employed Verser as the facility's biller.
The new charges bring the number of indictments related to AHCCCS fraud since 2021 up to over 40. Nine of those cases have been dismissed — some with prejudice and some without. Only one person has been sentenced.
Government records revealed, according to the news release, that the health care facility billed AHCCCS and the American Indian Health Program for more than $115 million in behavioral health services between December 2021 and February 2023.
It is alleged that a portion of those bills for services was fraudulent in nature, the news release stated.
According to recorded documents in Maricopa County, Verser received an asset forfeiture notice in July for over $8.2 million in property from the Attorney General's Office related to her new criminal charges.
Verser's four-bedroom Chandler home, which she purchased for $1.5 million in cash in January, was seized, along with eight cars registered, including a Corvette, two Bentleys and a Porsche.
Lucas and the unnamed defendant face 19 felony charges, including conspiracy, illegal control of an enterprise, fraudulent schemes and artifices, and multiple counts of theft. Verser's charges are the same, though instead of illegal control of an enterprise, she is charged with illegally conducting an enterprise.
A Better You was charged with fraudulent schemes and artifices and multiple counts of theft.
In October 2022, the Arizona Department of Health Services cited the facility for nine citations, including violations involving patient rights and safety standards. A Better You was cleared of those citations a month later, according to the state Health Department's website.
In May, state and tribal officials announced that hundreds of millions of dollars in Medicaid funds were fleeced from Arizona taxpayers as part of a scheme that used Indigenous people.
State and tribal officials said that Indigenous people were aggressively recruited and, in some cases, kidnapped from rural areas and taken to fake facilities in the Phoenix area. The victims often were not allowed to leave or contact their loved ones. Some were driven across state lines.
But those running the fake clinics were using a billing loophole to get paid more government money by saying they were providing mental health and substance abuse treatment to the patients even though they often were not, according to prosecutors.
Some used their fraudulent money to buy lavish houses and cars, according to court and public records. Meanwhile, their patients suffered far from their homes and were not receiving health treatments they needed.
Crackdown grows: Arizona's Medicaid program isn't giving fraud suspects due process, critics say
As of Oct. 13, over 350 providers have had their payments suspended by AHCCCS since 2019 for suspected fraud. That number continues to grow as the agency investigates fraud claims. A Better You Wellness Center had its payments suspended in February. It's not clear if all of the suspensions were directly related to the massive fraud case announced in the spring.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona AG reveals 4 new indictments in AHCCCS fraud scandal
