A 64-year-old Kansas City woman has been booked into Douglas County Corrections as the third suspect arrested in a sprawling Medicaid fraud conspiracy connected to two Omaha home health companies, facing charges of theft by deception greater than $5,000 and conspiracy to commit fraud. Dawn Brockington, who also goes by Dawn Reed, is accused of secretly controlling Abria Home Health and Kind Hearts Caregivers even though a prior conviction should have barred her from the industry entirely.
According to court records cited by WOWT, Brockington was arrested as the third of three suspects in the alleged Omaha-based scheme. The State of Nebraska filed a 252-page lawsuit against Brockington along with co-defendants Keith Forte, 47, and Persha Cooper, 41, alleging all three lied to the state in paperwork tied to the two companies.
Mother-Son Arrangement at the Center of the Case
Court records allege Brockington is Forte's mother and was actually the one running Abria and Kind Hearts Caregivers while Forte served as the companies' public-facing representative. Brockington was convicted of Medicaid fraud in Florida back in the 1990s, and she was placed on Nebraska's excluded provider list in 2017, according to the station's reporting.
Forte told investigators he was only the face of the companies and agreed with his mother to put them in his name because of her criminal history, per the same account. The lawsuit alleges the defendants failed to disclose that Brockington was an owner despite being ineligible, which allegedly made the services non-reimbursable from the start.
Nearly $3 Million in Questionable Claims
Between 2021 and 2025, the defendants submitted 13,530 claims to Medicaid for non-reimbursable services and received $2,987,284.90 for those claims, the station's report notes. Investigators found Brockington spent $1,043,047.97 of that money on herself, with the spending reportedly including casino gambling, credit card debt, retail shopping, groceries, pets and entertainment.
Nebraska has requested $8,961,854.70 in damages, along with civil penalties of $10,000 for each false claim plus court costs and fees. Abria and Kind Hearts Caregivers have had defunct websites since early October, the report indicates.
Cooper's HR Role and a Separate Benefits Case
Persha Cooper worked as the HR manager for both companies, and court records allege she also lied to the state alongside Brockington and Forte. Cooper told investigators Forte received a weekly paycheck of about $326, the report states.
Beyond the Medicaid allegations, Cooper faces a separate criminal welfare-fraud case. The state alleges she received $43,734.56 in SNAP and childcare benefits by underreporting her income and making checks from the business out to herself, and per an affidavit cited in the reporting, Cooper admitted to falsely reporting income to Nebraska's health and human services department and to writing additional checks to herself from Abria Home Health, receiving roughly $3,000 per month that she did not report on her assistance applications.
Bonds, Court Dates and an AG's Office That Won't Comment
Forte was assigned a $125,000 bond and Cooper a $50,000 bond; both are scheduled to appear in court again on November 18. Brockington is scheduled to appear in court Friday. Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers' office declined to comment on the case, per the station's reporting.
The Attorney General's Medicaid Fraud and Patient Abuse Unit is the state body tasked with investigating and prosecuting this kind of case, holding statewide criminal jurisdiction over Medicaid provider-fraud matters, according to the Nebraska Attorney General's Office. The unit has pursued other Omaha-area Medicaid cases in recent years, including a 2025 settlement with ECO Supportive Living over allegations that a contractor caused the company to submit false claims, and a separate case in which an Omaha woman, Lisa Mitchell, was found guilty of theft by unlawful taking in a Medicaid-fraud matter that same year.
Nebraska's home health licensure rules require agencies to comply with federal certification requirements and hold a state-issued license to remain eligible for Medicaid and Medicare payment, per the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services. How investigators arrived at the nearly $9 million damages figure, and how the case against all three defendants will ultimately play out, remains to be seen as court dates approach next month.
