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Juliet Jacob, formerly of Bridgeport, was sentenced to one year and a day in prison after she pleaded guilty in Bridgeport District Court to one count of health care fraud stemming from a scheme that lasted several years last year. She must also pay a total of $2,711,173 in restitution connected to the schemes.
Beginning in January 2012, Jacob and another person operated Traditional Development and Training and It Takes A Promise in Bridgeport. Their businesses provided social and psychotherapy services to patients in Fairfield County. Jacob admitted to using those companies to bill Medicaid for psychotherapy services that were never provided.
According to U.S. Attorney John Durham, as part of the scheme, Jacob and the other individual used the Medicaid provider numbers of two licensed health care providers who had neither rendered nor supervised any of the psychotherapy services that Jacob and the other individual billed to Medicaid.
In total, the scheme defrauded Medicaid of an estimated $2.5 million.
As part of her guilty plea, Jacob also admitted to her role in a separate scheme in 2010 and 2011, when she conspired with Ronnette Brown and Beverly Coker to defraud Medicaid of more than $214,000 by fraudulently billing for psychotherapy services that were not provided.
“Today’s sentencing is the final step in a five-year investigation that resulted in convictions of eight individuals involved in three separate but related schemes to defraud Medicaid of over six million dollars,” Durham said. “These convictions demonstrate the combined efforts of Connecticut’s federal and state criminal and civil law enforcement agencies, working closely with the Connecticut Department of Social Services, to identify, investigate, and prosecute individuals who commit Medicaid fraud. We will continue to vigilantly protect the federal and state dollars that support these vital health care services.”
On May 26, 2017, a jury found Brown guilty of 23 counts of health care fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud, stemming from these schemes.
On April 19 last year, Brown was sentenced to 48 months of imprisonment and ordered her to pay $2,033,962 in restitution. Coker pleaded guilty to one count of health care fraud and, on May 8, was sentenced to five years of probation and restitution of $214,555.
Three others have been implicated in the scheme and convicted of health care fraud offenses. The investigation into the Medicaid scam is ongoing.
“This is yet another example of what can be accomplished when agencies at levels of government work in collaboration to achieve their common goal,” Chief State’s Attorney Kevin Kane said. “All of these agencies worked tirelessly over several years to assure that waste, fraud and abuse in our Medicaid program is uncovered and those responsible are punished accordingly.
Jacob remains released on $25,000 bond. She is scheduled to report to prison on Sept. 20.
“We will not tolerate criminals stealing precious dollars from our federal health care programs,” Phillip Coyne, Special Agent in Charge for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General added. “Today’s sentence shows our commitment to working with our state and federal law enforcement partners to swiftly investigate these fraud schemes and bring criminals to justice.”
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