WASHINGTON - Angela Peaks, a home health aide, has been sentenced to three years of probation and ordered to pay $17,980.64 in restitution for her role in selling fake home health aide certificates, U.S. Attorney Jeffrey A. Taylor and Charles J. Willoughby, District of Columbia Inspector General, announced today.

Peaks, 37, of the 1300 block of Columbia Road, NW, Washington, D.C., pleaded guilty on July 23, 2008, and was sentenced yesterday in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia before the Honorable Henry H. Kennedy, Jr. on one count of health care fraud.

According to the statement of offense, signed by the defendant, the District of Columbia's Medicaid Program pays for home health services to the elderly and affirm. Home health aides typically perform such duties as recording vital signs, preparing meals, helping with basic care, and house cleaning. Home health aides work for staffing agencies, which in turn, bill Medicaid. Medicaid regulations require the home health aides to provide a certificate proving that they successfully completed a 75-hour training program of classroom work and supervised practical training.

The defendant, Angela Peaks, sold fraudulent home health aide certificates to at least five individuals who had not completed the classroom work and the training necessary to earn a legitimate certificate. The buyers contacted Peaks requesting a certificate. Peaks would ask for the buyer's name, Social Security number, and date of birth. In exchange for some amount of money, Peaks would deliver to the buyers the false home health aid certificate, laminated with the buyer's name and Social Security number, as well as certain other documents necessary to obtain a job as a home health aide. Peaks sold the false and forged certificates in the District of Columbia knowing that they would be used by the buyers to apply for a job as a home health aide.

In announcing the sentence, U.S. Attorney Taylor and District of Columbia Inspector General Willoughby commended Special United States Attorney Dangkhoa Nguyen, auditor LaShawn Brooks and the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit investigators and auditors. In addition, they commended Legal Assistant April Peeler and Assistant U.S. Attorney Virginia Cheatham.