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Press Release

Ambulance Company Owner Pleads Guilty to Health Care Fraud

For Immediate Release
U.S. Attorney's Office, Southern District of Ohio

CINCINNATI – Terry Johnson, 42, of Hamilton Ohio, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to one count of health care fraud and one count of money laundering.

Carter M. Stewart, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, Guy A. Ficco, Acting Special Agent in Charge, Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Criminal Investigation, Cincinnati Field Office, Lamont Pugh, Special Agent in Charge, Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG) and Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine announced the plea entered into today before U.S. District Judge Michael R. Barrett.

According to court documents, Johnson is the owner and operator of Community Angels Ambulance Service, LLC, which provided medical transportation to dialysis patients from at least 2007 through 2012. He also operated the ambulance company Starlite Transportation.

For approximately seven years, Johnson fraudulently billed Medicare and Medicaid for ambulance and ambulette transports. Approximately $1.1 million was fraudulently billed to Medicare for Community Angels. The loss to Medicaid from both companies totaled more than $356,000.

“Honest and law abiding citizens are fed up with the likes of those who use deceit and fraud to line their pockets with government program money," said Guy A. Ficco, Acting Special Agent in Charge, IRS Criminal Investigation, Cincinnati Field Office. "Those individuals who engage in this type of health care fraud should know they will not go undetected and will be held accountable."

Health care fraud and money laundering are each crimes punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

U.S. Attorney Stewart commended the cooperative investigation by the IRS, HHS-OIG and the Ohio Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Unit, as well as Assistant United States Attorney Timothy Mangan, who is representing the United States in this case. 

Updated January 12, 2016

Topic
Health Care Fraud