Press Releases
EMPLOYEES OF LOCAL MEDICAID AGENCY FACE CHARGES FOR
FEDERAL HEALTH CARE OFFENSES
August 20, 2008
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CRYSTAL BLACK, age 35, a resident of Harvey, LA, ANISSA EUGENE, age 23, a resident of New Orleans, LA, and CHERYL MOUTON, age 45, a resident of Marrero, LA, were charged today in separate bills of information for health care fraud, announced U. S. Attorney Jim Letten.
According to the charging documents, A New Beginning of New Orleans, Inc.(ANBNO), was a Medicaid Provider located in Harvey, Louisiana that made claims for Personal Care Services it claimed to have provided to Medicaid recipients. CRYSTAL BLACK, ANISSA EUGENE and CHERYL MOUTON were employees of ANBNO.
Personal Care Services (PCS) are Medicaid services provided by attendants to eligible recipients meeting the medical necessity criteria who are unable to care for themselves. The bills allege that ANBNO solicited mothers with children who had Medicaid benefits to apply for PCS. It is alleged that in many cases, a false prescription for PCS was created and transmitted to Medicaid; and in other cases, true prescriptions were transmitted relative to children with true disabilities.
It is further alleged that after Medicaid approved the PCS applications, false documentation containing employees’ time sheets and daily schedules which detailed the services rendered to Medicaid child recipients was created by employees of ANBNO and parents of the Medicaid recipient children. These bills of information are part of the same scheme charged in an indictment returned on June 5, 2008, where AKASIA LEE and MICHAEL DAVIS, owners and operators of ANBNO, D’JUAN ROBINSON, QUEBAN LEE, UNA FAVORITE BROWN and MELINDA LANGLEY, employees of ANBNO, and ERNESTINE GIROD a mother of Medicaid recipients, were charged in multiple counts of conspiracy and health care fraud. From the time of the inception of ANBNO through May 4, 2005, when a federal search warrant was executed at the business location of ANBNO, Medicaid paid approximately $3,977,288 as a result of the fraudulent claims made by ANBNO and its employees.
CRYSTAL BLACK, ANISSA EUGENE and CHERYL MOUTON each faces up to ten (10) years in prison and fines of up to $250,000. The U. S. Attorney reminds citizens that the statutory maximum penalties notwithstanding, the U. S. Sentencing Guidelines, although not mandatory, still remain advisory in the fashioning of sentences by the Court.
U. S. Attorney Letten reiterated that today’s bills of information are charges, and that the guilt of each defendant must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
This investigation is being conducted by the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Louisiana Medicaid Fraud Control Unit. The prosecution is being handled by Assistant United States Attorney Patrice Harris Sullivan.
(Download Bill of Information for Black, Eugene, Mouton 
)
