Jaquita Lovelace, Medicare Fraud, Michigan 2009

A Detroit-based occupational therapist and a patient recruiter have pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Detroit to participating in Medicare fraud schemes.

Detroit resident Jaquita Lovelace, 30, and Miami resident Timothy Pierce, 42, each pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud.

Lovelace, a licensed occupational therapist, admitted to working as a contract therapist for Suresh Chand, who owned and controlled several companies operating in the Detroit area that purported to provide physical and occupational therapy services to Medicare beneficiaries.

Between September 2005 and October 2006, Chand and his co-conspirators submitted claims to the Medicare program totaling approximately $2,176,000 for files that were falsified by Lovelace.

Lovelace admitted that she signed approximately 544 fictitious occupational therapy files, falsely indicating she had provided occupational therapy services to Medicare beneficiaries.

Lovelace was paid between $90 and $110 by Chand per file that she falsified in this manner.

Pierce admitted to recruiting, driving, and paying kickbacks to Medicare beneficiaries to induce them to go to Dearborn Medical Rehabilitation Center, a Dearborn, Mich., infusion clinic.

The cases are being prosecuted by Senior Trial Attorney John K. Neal of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section and by Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas W. Beimers of the Eastern District of Michigan.

The FBI and the HHS Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG) conducted the investigation.

The case was brought as part of the Medicare Fraud Strike Force, supervised by the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Michigan.

Lovelace pleaded guilty on Tuesday, November 17, 2009, before U.S. District Judge Sean F. Cox. Pierce pleaded guilty today before U.S. District Judge Denise Page Hood.

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