A dentist, Ifeanyi Ozoh, a Nigerian national residing in the United States, has been sentenced to 72 months in prison for his involvement in a $6 million bribery scheme that defrauded a U.S. insurance company, Medicaid, through illicit kickbacks.
In addition to his prison sentence, Ozoh has been ordered to pay $4.9 million in restitution to Medicaid, along with three years of supervised release following his time in prison.
U.S. Attorney Alamdar Hamdani announced the sentencing in a statement published on the U.S. Department of Justice website.
Ozoh was convicted for conspiring to pay bribes to attract patients insured by Medicaid to a fictitious dental clinic under the pretense of providing treatment, allowing the clinic to submit fraudulent claims to the insurance company.
According to the statement, “A 54-year-old man has been sentenced following his conviction for conspiring to pay and receive healthcare kickbacks.”
A federal jury deliberated for just one hour after a three-day trial, ultimately finding Ozoh guilty on all counts on February 14.
U.S. District Chief Judge Randy Crane has ordered Ozoh to serve 72 months in federal prison, which will be immediately followed by three years of supervised release.
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The court’s hearing revealed that Ozoh played a critical role in the kickback scheme by bribing marketers and parents to bring their Medicaid-insured children to the sham dental clinic.
The court noted that there was overwhelming evidence of Ozoh’s guilt presented during the trial.
Ozoh, who lived in Houston, Texas, was affiliated with Floss Family Dentalcare Centre, which filed an insurance claim for $6 million with Medicaid and received over $4 million in payments.
Testimonies from marketers indicated that Ozoh paid them between $20 and $100 for each Medicaid-insured child they referred to Floss.
They revealed that Ozoh often made these illegal kickback payments in cash and out of sight, sometimes placing the payments on top of a vending machine located down the hall from the clinic.
One clinic manager testified that she repeatedly cautioned Ozoh that paying marketers was illegal.
The jury also learned that Ozoh disbursed over $163,000 in bribes to marketers and received bonuses for meeting patient referral quotas.
Between 2020 and 2021, Floss billed Medicaid over $6 million and received more than $4 million from these claims, most of which were based on kickbacks and for dental services that were never provided.
The judgment, however, allowed Ozoh “to remain on bond and voluntarily surrender to a U.S. Bureau of Prisons facility to be determined in the near future.”
