A federal grant jury in Baltimore indicted two Bear, DE residents in connection with a billing scam involving a mental provider in Maryland.
The panel s indicted Lyneth Nyabiosi, 49, and her husband, Willie Evans III, a/k/a “James Davies” and “James Davis,” 53.
The charges came out of a scheme to falsely bill Nyabiosi’s employer, Sheppard Pratt Health Systems, Towson, Md., for approximately $2.5 million for work purportedly performed by a company that the defendants secretly controlled.
The indictment was returned and unsealed following the arrest of the defendants last week.
Sheppard Pratt Health System is a private, non-profit health system in Maryland which offers mental health, substance use and special education services.
According to court filings, from November 2005 to September 2014, Nyabiosi was the director of the Health Information Management Department) at Sheppard Pratt.
Her LinkedIn profile also listed previous HIM positions with St. Francis Hospital Wilmington and Universal Health Services, a Delaware Valley-based provider.
The department in Maryland was responsible for receiving, organizing and storing patient medical records.
According to the eight count indictment, Nyabiosi and Evans controlled and operated an entity named Information Management Solutions Technology (IMST), which was purported to specialize in record management.
On March 7, 2007, Nyabiosi, on behalf of Sheppard Pratt, entered into a contract with IMST to manage medical records for Sheppard Pratt, in violation of Sheppard Pratt’s conflict of interest policy.
From 2006 to October 2014, and to conceal the conflict of interest, the defendants falsely represented to Sheppard Pratt and others that IMST was operated by an account representative named “James Davis” and “James Davies,” when in fact no such person was employed by IMST.
The indictment further alleges that from 2007 to August 2014, the defendants submitted over 150 false invoices requesting that Sheppard Pratt pay IMST approximately $2.5 million.
The invoices requested payment for work which was never performed, or for excessively inflated amounts for the work that was actually performed.
For example, the invoices and other documents provided to Sheppard Pratt falsely represented that IMST stored and then shredded hundreds of thousands of boxes of sensitive medical records, when in fact IMST had stored substantially less.
Nyabiosi, nonetheless personally approved all of the false invoices, thus causing Sheppard Pratt to mail checks to IMST totaling approximately $2.5 million.
The defendants deposited the money in their bank account and used the money for personal expenditures, including loan and mortgage payments; home renovations and upgrades; personal wire transfers to Africa; and vehicle, food, clothing and entertainment expenses, the indictment alleges.
The indictment seeks $2.6 million, two residences in Bear and Newark, Delaware and three vehicles.
The defendants face a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison for each of the eight counts of conspiring to commit mail fraud and mail fraud.
The defendants were released on home confinement and under the supervision of U.S. Pretrial Services.
