Markuetric Stringfellow, Medicaid Fraud, South Carolina 2023

Markuetric Stringfellow, Medicaid Fraud, South Carolina 2023

A Georgia man has been sentenced to 6.5 years in federal prison for defrauding the Medicaid programs in South and North Carolina.

Markuetric Stringfellow, 37, of Powder Springs, Georgia, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Kenneth D. Bell to 78 months in prison and 3 years of supervised release for defrauding the South and North Carolina Medicaid programs.

Stringfellow was also ordered to pay over $5 million as restitution, including more than $700,000 to the South Carolina Medicaid program.

According to court documents, Stringfellow was a franchise owner of Wrights Care Services LLC, a qualified provider of Medicaid rehabilitative behavioral health services in South Carolina. He and his co-conspirators defrauded the South Carolina Medicaid program by filing fraudulent claims for services that were either not provided, partially provided, or did not qualify for reimbursement.

Starting in or around 2014, Stringfellow and his co-conspirators submitted falsified patient billing records and fake medical notes to support the fraudulent reimbursement claims filed with the South Carolina Medicaid program. They also attempted to deceive South Carolina Medicaid auditors by creating false and fraudulent billing records and forging signatures.

In addition to the scheme in South Carolina, Stringfellow defrauded the North Carolina Medicaid program. He was a resident of Charlotte and Greensboro, North Carolina, and a partner in Everlasting Vitality, LLC and Do-It-4-The Hood Corporation. Stringfellow and his co-conspirators executed a conspiracy to defraud the North Carolina Medicaid program by soliciting illegal kickbacks from various drug testing laboratories in exchange for referrals of North Carolina Medicaid beneficiaries.

Stringfellow and his co-conspirators paid individuals to recruit at-risk youths, including children who were Medicaid eligible, for EV's or D4H's after-school and youth mentoring programs. They then conspired with certain laboratories to perform the drug testing of the urine specimens submitted in the names of children enrolled at EV and D4H and received kickbacks after the laboratories were reimbursed by the North Carolina Medicaid.

Defendant: Markuetric Stringfellow

Criminal charges: Defrauding the South and North Carolina Medicaid programs

City and state: Charlotte, North Carolina

Date: April 2014

Sentence: 78 months in prison, 3 years of supervised release, and over $5 million in restitution

Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sc/pr/georgia-man-sentenced-65-years-federal-prison-defrauding-medicaid-programs-south-and