WASHINGTON - A District of Columbia company that over billed the city's Department of Public Health by more than $110,000 for services to at-risk teenagers that were never provided has pleaded guilty to Health Care Fraud, U.S. Attorney Jeffrey A. Taylor and Joseph Persichini, Jr., Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI's Washington Field Office, announced today.

The Institute for Behavioral Change and Research, Inc. ("IBCR") entered its guilty plea today before the Honorable Paul L. Friedman, U.S. District Judge for the District of Columbia. Sentencing is scheduled for March 31, 2009.

Under the terms of the plea agreement, IBCR was required to make full restitution by repaying the $111,172.11 it over billed the District of Columbia Department of Public Health. Checks totaling that amount were turned over to the government at today's hearing. The government and IBCR agreed, in the plea agreement, based on representations made by the company that it lacked the financial resources to pay a fine in addition to the restitution it owed. Under the agreement, the corporation also agreed to pay a $400 special assessment and serve a 5-year period of corporate probation in which it was required to follow certain provisions designed to prevent it from breaking the law in the future.

According to the Statement of the Offense filed by the U.S. Attorney's Office with the Court, IBCR was a not-for-profit corporation whose mission was to provide health care related services and support to children, adolescents and families with emotional and behavioral problems. IBCR received federal and local grants to provide mental health services to children, adolescents and adults through various programs, one of which was the D.C. CITY Program.

As indicated in the Statement of the Offense, after IBCR received a contract in June 2005 with the D.C. Department of Public Health's Addiction Prevention and Recovery Administration ("APRA") to provide health care assistance to D.C. youth who were at risk for drug use and abuse, it began submitting invoices for work that was not performed. Between June 2005 and October 2006, 19 of the 22 invoices IBCR transmitted to APRA sought reimbursement of services that were not provided.

In announcing today's guilty plea, U.S. Attorney Taylor and FBI Assistant Director in Charge Persichini commended the work of the FBI, particularly the work of Special Agent Chadwick M. Elgersma, as well as the staff of the U.S. Attorney's Office, including Legal Assistants Lisa Robinson and April Peeler, and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Thomas Zeno and James A. Mitzelfeld, who prosecuted the case.