After being sentenced for participation in a $374 million home heath care fraud scheme, two home health agency owners and a Dallas-area doctor have been denied acquittal.
Jacques Roy, M.C., 59; Cynthia Stiger, 54; and Charity Eleda, 56, were convicted on one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud. Roy was also convicted on eight counts of health care fraud, and Eleda on four counts.
The three had submitted oral motions for a judgement of acquittal. U.S. District Judge Sam Lindsay ruled on July 31 that there “was sufficient evidence from which the jury could have found beyond a reasonable doubt the essential elements of each of the offenses charged against these Defendants.”
Wilbert James Veasey, Jr., 65, who owned and operated Apple of Your Eye Healthcare Services, Inc., along with Stiger, was sentenced in June to 17 years in prison for his role in the scheme.
Veasey and Stiger, along with Eleda, who owned and operated Charry Home Care Services, Inc., improperly recruited people with Medicare coverage to sign up for Medicare home health care services, according to the Department of Justice. Eleda also falsified medical documents to make it seem as though beneficiaries qualified for home health care services that were actually medically unnecessary.
The long-running fraud was orchestrated by Jacques Roy, M.D., who signed off on care plans and visited patients, performed unnecessary home visits and ordered unnecessary medical services for recruited beneficiaries. His company, Dallas-based Medistat Group Associates, processed and approved care plans for 11,000 unique Medicare beneficiaries for more than 500 different home health agencies.
Roy has been in federal custody since his arrest on February 28, 2012.
Written by Elizabeth Jakaitis
Companies featured in this article:
Apple of Your Eye Healthcare Services, Charry Home Care Services, Medistat Group Associates
