A woman who with her husband operated home health operations in Ahoskie and Roanoke Rapids was sentenced to spend 170 months in federal prison and was ordered to repay $13,396,921 to North Carolina Medicaid.
Latisha Harron, who lived with her husband in Las Vegas, was sentenced today in Wilmington, according to the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina.
The 14-year sentence reflects charges of conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud and wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, and conspiracy to commit money laundering, counts she pleaded guilty to earlier.
Court documents reflect that forfeitable items include up to $13,396,921.64 in cash, a British Aerospace Bae 125-800A aircraft, a 2017 Aston Martin DB 11 sports car; a 2016 Ford F-150 Supercrew pickup; real property held in the name of Assured Healthcare Systems in Hertford County, real property located in Charles County, Maryland, as well as various other items of designer jewelry and luxury items seized from the defendant’s penthouse condominium in Las Vegas.
Acting United States Attorney G. Norman Acker III, said, “This case demonstrates the resolve of this office to bring healthcare fraud artists to justice — wherever they are found; pandemic or no pandemic. The ultimate reward of fraud is not a life of luxury, but years of life lost to federal prison.”
According to court documents, Harron, also known as Latisha Reese Holt, 44, originally from Eastern North Carolina, admitted to conspiring with her husband to carry out a massive fraud upon the North Carolina Medicaid Program by billing the government for fictitious home health services.
Harron admitted to then working with her husband to launder the proceeds of the fraud into, among other things, a private jet, luxury jewelry and clothing, and properties in Ahoskie and Rich Square, North Carolina.
According to the charges, Harron created, and was operating, Agape Healthcare Systems, an alleged Medicaid home health provider, in Roanoke Rapids.
As charged, to enroll Agape as a Medicaid provider, Harron fraudulently concealed her prior felony conviction for identity theft. In 2012, Harron moved out of North Carolina to Maryland. Despite that move, Harron continued to bill NC Medicaid as though Agape was providing home health services to North Carolina recipients.
As charged, in May of 2017, Harron moved to Las Vegas, Nevada to live with codefendant Timothy Mark Harron, and that the two were married in 2018.
The indictment alleges that Mr. Harron was also a previously convicted felon, and that this fact was concealed from the NC Medicaid on enrollment documents.
Mrs. Harron pleaded guilty to allegations that she and her husband then worked together to expand the Agape fraud upon NC Medicaid, by fraudulently billing the program for more than $10 Million, just in the period between 2017 and 2019.
As charged, Mrs. Harron admitted that she and her husband carried out the fraud by exploiting an eligibility tool that was entrusted only to NC Medicaid providers.
Specifically, Harron and her husband searched publicly available sources, such as obituary postings on the internet by North Carolina funeral homes, to locate recently deceased North Carolinians.
Harron admitted that the two would then extract from the obituary postings certain personal information for the deceased, including their name, date of birth, and date of death.
Then, utilizing the extracted information, the defendants would then query the NC Medicaid eligibility tool to determine whether the deceased individual had a Medicaid Identification Number.
If the deceased North Carolinian had a valid Medicaid Identification Number and was otherwise eligible for Medicaid coverage during their life, the defendants would use that individual’s identity to back-bill NC Medicaid, through Agape, for up to one year of fictitious home health services that were allegedly rendered prior to the death of the individual.
NC Medicaid then dispersed millions to Agape, all of which flowed into accounts controlled by the Harrons.
Mrs. Harron admitted that she and her husband carried out the fraud via the internet from locations around the globe, including their corporate office building in Las Vegas, their penthouse condominium in Las Vegas, a corporate office in North Carolina, and from various hotels and luxury resorts in and outside of the United States.
She further pleaded guilty to laundering the proceeds of the Agape fraud into various luxury items.
Acker made the announcement after District Judge Richard E. Myers II announced the sentence.
