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Medicaid Fraudster Convicted, Ordered to Pay Restitution

BATON ROUGE, LA – Attorney General Jeff Landry today applauded the sentencing of a conviction made by his Medicaid Fraud Control Unit.

In May 2017, after receiving information from the Louisiana Legislative Auditor Darryl Pupera, General Landry’s office began investigating A New Direction Support Services (ANDSS) for fraudulently billing Medicaid for services not rendered and services provided by unqualified staff. ANDSS, owned by Lanice Stamps, was a New Orleans behavioral health provider operating without a license. In less than a year, from September 2016 until July 2017, ANDSS billed Medicaid for 38,289 claims totaling $7.7 million. The company was paid nearly $2.5 million for said claims.

A Louisiana Bureau of Investigation (LBI) analysis showed that Stamps was fraudulently receiving Medicaid welfare benefits while spending over a million dollars of fraudulently obtained Medicaid provider funds on personal expenditures during the operation of ANDSS. The investigation uncovered various records that were doctored and forged. The number of hours billed compared to the amount of staff computed to each staffer would have worked 22.9 hours a day providing services to clients. Many of the parents interviewed revealed that their children did not receive any services from ANDSS and that some of their children were diagnosed with nonexistent severe mental health issues.

What’s more: as we have continuously seen with the Governor’s Medicaid Expansion, despite having over a million dollars in her bank account, Stamps applied and received Medicaid welfare benefits for her herself and her four children.

Stamps, 46 of New Orleans, was arrested in October 2017 on ten counts of Medicaid Fraud. Under the terms of her conviction, Stamps pled guilty to one count of felony theft and $1.3 million was seized from her bank accounts. Judge Fred Crifasi sentenced her to 15 years with the Department of Corrections with all but one year suspended. The sentence also included three years active supervised probation, $1,000 fine plus court costs, 300 hours of community service, random drug testing, and to continue to pay restitution on the current balance of $142,858.43.

“Medicaid fraud is a crime that robs our State of precious resources and endangers services to those in need,” said General Landry. “This conviction not only highlights the ongoing problems in the State's Behavioral Health Program but also the need for more Medicaid welfare fraud detection and aggressive control efforts. I applaud Judge Crifasi, our investigators who work tirelessly to fight waste, fraud, and abuse and our prosecutors who work to ensure justice is served.”

Medicaid fraud occurs when providers use the Medicaid program to obtain money they are not entitled to. To report Medicaid fraud, abuse, and/or neglect in residential care facilities – call General Landry’s Medicaid Fraud Hotline at 888-799-6885.

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This is an update to 
Over $1M Returning to State in Medicaid Welfare Fraud Convictions