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Juliet Jacob, formerly of Bridgeport, pleaded guilty this week in Bridgeport District Court to one count of health care fraud stemming from a scheme that lasted several years.
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.
On May 26 last year, 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, 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.
Jacob remains released on $25,000 bond. When she is sentenced, she faces a maximum term of 10 years in prison. She has also agreed to pay $2,711,173 in restitution. No sentencing date has been scheduled.
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