Raleigh man convicted of Medicare fraud that preyed on NC group homes and churches
A Raleigh man was sentenced Thursday to 17 years in prison for fraud and identity theft, the U.S. Department of Justice said.
Furman Alexander Ford, 53, was convicted by a jury trial last October of conspiracy to commit health care fraud, health care fraud, 10 counts of wire fraud and 10 counts of aggravated identity theft, according to a news release from the department’s Eastern District of North Carolina.
As owner and operator of IAM Healthcare in Raleigh, Ford conducted a scheme to trick group homes and churches into providing Medicare information, evidence presented during his trial showed.
He then used the Medicare information to submit fraudulent claims on behalf of elderly and disabled beneficiaries who didn’t receive any services from his business.
The fraud victims were at group homes in Wake, Durham, and Johnston counties and at small churches in Bladen County.
Ford also targeted small community churches in Bladen County by offering them food in exchange for Medicare information, according to court records.
Ford submitted fraudulent claims to Medicare for reimbursement from December 2018 to February 2020, billing Medicare for over $500,000.
There were 74 beneficiaries whose information was stolen and had claims submitted for services they didn’t receive.
Ford was paid nearly $167,000 out of $251,508 billed for those claims alone.
“This 17-year sentence is fitting for a defendant who stole from the most vulnerable in our society,” said U.S. Attorney Michael Easley in a news release. “We live in a generous nation, but some choose to feed their greed at the expense of those in need. This defendant stole the identities of Medicare beneficiaries to defraud a taxpayer-funded program intended to help elderly, poor and disabled citizens.”
The case was investigated by the Office of Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services and the FBI.
In November last year, a Cary man was sentenced to more than 12 years in prison for a similar scheme to defraud the North Carolina Medicaid system of more than $7 million, The News & Observer reported. Antonio Deon Fozard was sentenced in November to 151 months in prison and three years of supervised release for conspiracy and health care fraud after being investigated by the FBI.
Most recently, federal prosecutors found Raleigh doctor Anita Jackson guilty in January for netting over $4.79 million from Medicare through fraudulent means, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
