Haydn Patrick Thomas, Medicaid Fraud, NC 2024

Durham, North Carolina resident Haydn Patrick Thomas is headed to federal prison for 78 months after being convicted in a $4 million Medicaid fraud ring that preyed on the state’s most vulnerable. The 40-year-old office manager turned co-conspirator admitted to helping orchestrate a massive scam that flooded fake mental health claims into the system while he funneled illicit cash into personal accounts.

On September 5, 2018, Thomas pleaded guilty to one count of making false statements related to health care matters and one count of tax evasion for the 2014 tax year. U.S. District Court Judge N. Carlton Tilley, Jr. handed down the sentence in the Middle District of North Carolina, slamming Thomas for exploiting patient data to fuel the fraud. The scheme was centered around Durham County Mental Health and Behavioral Health Services, LLC (DCMBHS), owned by Catinia Farrington.

From 2011 through 2015, Farrington submitted thousands of bogus claims to Medicaid for services never rendered. Those fraudulent filings triggered payouts totaling approximately $4 million to her company. Thomas, though employed as an office manager for an oral surgeon, supplied Farrington with names and Medicaid identification numbers of real dental patients—data he had no right to share—enabling the false billing to appear legitimate.

But Thomas didn’t just enable the fraud—he profited. He pocketed over $1.4 million from DCMBHS, money he deliberately hid from the IRS. By filing false tax returns and shuffling funds through shell business accounts, Thomas evaded roughly $518,000 in federal income taxes. Investigators from the IRS and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General, traced luxury purchases and personal expenses paid straight from the fraud proceeds.

In addition to his prison term, Thomas was ordered to serve three years of supervised release and to pay $3,950,656 in restitution to the North Carolina Fund for Medical Assistance and $518,997 to the IRS. The judgment ensures he’ll remain under federal watch long after release. In March 2019, co-conspirator Catinia Farrington was sentenced to 60 months in prison and ordered to pay more than $4 million in restitution jointly to the state and federal governments.

Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Richard E. Zuckerman of the Justice Department’s Tax Division and U.S. Attorney Matthew G.T. Martin for the Middle District of North Carolina praised the investigative work of federal and state agents. Prosecution was handled by Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Hamilton (now retired), Trial Attorney Mara Strier of the Tax Division, and Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Heavner from the North Carolina Attorney General’s Medicaid Investigations Division. The case stands as a stark warning: stealing from public health programs carries steep consequences.