Head of Camden Nonprofit Sentenced to 70 Months in Prison for Defrauding Medicaid and Embezzling over $1.5 Million

CAMDEN, N.J. – The executive director of a nonprofit provider of mental health services to Camden’s poorest residents was sentenced today to 70 months in prison for defrauding New Jersey Medicaid by using unqualified people to treat Medicaid recipients and taking money from the nonprofit, Acting U.S. Attorney William E. Fitzpatrick announced.

Cesar Tavera, 53, of Cherry Hill, New Jersey, previously pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Noel L. Hillman to an information charging him with conspiracy to commit health care fraud and embezzling from a health care benefit program. Judge Hillman imposed the sentence today in Camden federal court.

According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court:

Cesar Tavera was the Executive Director of Nueva Vida Behavioral Health Center of New Jersey, a nonprofit provider of mental health services to the Camden Hispanic community. 

Most of Nueva Vida’s patients are on Medicaid, and Tavera controlled Nueva Vida’s billings to New Jersey Medicaid. He also supervised the people at Nueva Vida who treated Medicaid patients. New Jersey Medicaid rules require that people giving mental health therapy to Medicaid recipients must either be licensed or have a master’s degree in mental health. Tavera had several unlicensed, unqualified individuals treat Medicaid recipients and then billed Medicaid as if qualified therapists had treated the patients. Tavera himself treated Medicaid patients even though he was not qualified.

Under Tavera’s direction, Nueva Vida used several other fraudulent practices to obtain money from Medicaid. Nueva Vida billed Medicaid for therapy that never happened and billed group therapy as if each participant received individual therapy. If a mother received therapy without her child, Nueva Vida would bill Medicaid for a session with the mother and a separate session with the child. Nueva Vida billed Medicaid for short sessions as if they lasted for 45 minutes. To cover up his crimes, Tavera created false records to pass Medicaid audits.

He regularly embezzled money from the Nueva Vida bank account in addition to his salary and spent the money on himself and his family. He used the Nueva Vida bank account to pay for dental care, meals, travel in the United States and abroad, and the expenses of his daughter’s music career. Tavera paid no-show employees with cash and payroll checks from Nueva Vida’s bank account. He repeatedly withdrew cash at the Sugar House Casino in Philadelphia and used the money to gamble at the casino. Tavera embezzled more than $1.5 million from Nueva Vida.

In addition to the prison term, Judge Hillman sentenced Tavera to three years of supervised release and ordered to pay $2.5 million in restitution.

Acting U.S. Attorney Fitzpatrick credited agents of the FBI’s South Jersey Resident Agency, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Michael Harpster in Philadelphia, and special agents from the Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Scott J. Lampert, for the investigation leading to the guilty pleas. He also thanked the Medicaid Fraud Division of the N.J. Office of the State Comptroller. 

The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney R. David Walk Jr. of the U.S. Attorney’s Office Health Care and Government Fraud Unit in Camden.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office reorganized its health care practice in 2010 and created a stand-alone Health Care and Government Fraud Unit to handle both criminal and civil investigations and prosecutions of health care fraud offenses. Since that time, the office has recovered more than $1.34 billion in health care and government fraud settlements, judgments, fines, restitution and forfeiture under the False Claims Act, the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, and other statutes.