A 64-year-old Texas home health agency owner, Paul Njoku, was sentenced to more than six years in federal prison for Medicare fraud and identity theft. According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, Njoku was found guilty on all charges after less than two hours of jury deliberation during a three-day trial. U.S. District Judge Alfred H. Bennett gave a 75-month sentence, citing Njoku's "aggravating role in the fraud conspiracy."
Njoku ran Opnet Health Care Services Inc., also called P & P Health Care Services. He and his associates falsified medical records by forging doctors’ and nurses’ signatures. They used these fake documents to bill Medicare and continued submitting them when Medicare requested records. Between 2015 and 2019, Opnet billed over $400,000 and received more than $360,000. Trial testimony showed that Medicare would not have paid these claims if it had known the records were false or did not exist, as reported by the U.S. Attorney's Office.
Njoku was convicted on May 21 for falsifying medical documents, including using signatures of doctors and nurses without their consent, some from former employees. The trial also showed a bribe to a doctor to approve potentially unnecessary home health services. Njoku remains on bond and will surrender to a Federal Bureau of Prisons facility at a later date. The investigation involved the FBI, Department of Health and Human Services-Office of the Inspector General, and Texas Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, with Assistant U.S. Attorneys Christian Latham and Kathryn Olson prosecuting the case, as stated by the U.S. Attorney's Office.
