Local Home Health Aides Charged With Defrauding Medicaid

Six home health care workers, including three who worked for agencies headquartered in Sheepshead Bay, Bensonhurst and East Midwood, were arrested yesterday and accused of defrauding the New York State Medicaid Program of tens of thousands of dollars, New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced.

The scams, all independent of each other, variously involved faking home-health care credentials, posing as qualified medical specialists and submitting false billings for services that were never rendered, according to prosecutors. The defendants are charged separately with a variety of felonies including identity theft, grand larceny and possession of forged documents.

Among the allegations, Tara Justin, 41, of Brooklyn, is accused of receiving payment for work she never did at Sheepshead Bay-based Extended Home Care. Justin was a supervising nurse at the East 16th Street agency, responsible for supervising and verifying the provision of home health care services by home-health aides at the company.

Between June and September 2012, Justin submitted paperwork and was paid several hundred dollars for visits at the home of a 14-year-old, severely developmentally disabled Medicaid recipient when she made no such visits, prosecutors allege.

Justin is charged with falsifying business records in the first degree.

Mavis Adu Brempong, a 22-year-old Bronx resident, is charged with presenting a forged home-health aide certificate to get a job at Bensonhurst-based Royal Care. She later admitted that she did not attend training, and in fact bought the certificate from an individual she met on the subway, according to Schneiderman’s office. If convicted, she faces up to seven years in state prison.

Marina Trofimova, 50, is also accused of having a no-show job. Trofimova allegedly worked as a home health aide for I&Y Senior Care in East Midwood. In reality, prosecutors say, she worked at a funeral parlor. I&Y paid Trofimova more than $25,000 – salary she didn’t earn for medical services billed to Medicaid that she never rendered. Trofimova is charged with grand larceny in the third degree, and she faces up to seven years in prison if convicted.

Additionally, the state is seeking reimbursement from I&Y for the state funds paid to the agencies for the phony services.

“Every New Yorker must play by the same set of rules, especially those who are trusted to help our most vulnerable citizens,” said Schneiderman in a press release. “Anyone who seeks to line their own pockets by defrauding the programs that serve our most vulnerable will be caught and will be met with the full force of the law.”

The remaining three defendants worked in Bronx, Staten Island, Westchester and East New York agencies.