Omolere Omomowo, Medicaid Fraud, Washington D.C., 2024

WASHTINGTON, D.C. – Omolere Omomowo, 43, and five “community support workers” (CSWs) employed by his company, have been indicted on charges that they conspired to and did defraud the D.C. Medicaid program of over $10 million.

According to the indictment, Omomowo hatched the conspiracy in early 2020, while serving as the chief financial officer of a D.C.-based mental health provider, Prestige Healthcare Resources. After Prestige obtained certification from D.C.’s Department of Behavioral Health to start an Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) program, Omomowo took the lead in implementing the program.

The indictment alleges that, shortly after Prestige obtained its ACT authorization, Omomowo orchestrated a scheme by which most, if not all, of the consumers on certain CSWs’ caseloads were stepped up from receiving standard mental health services into receiving services as part of the ACT Program.

Omomowo and his co-conspirators allegedly implemented this scheme by directing the submission of false and fraudulent assessments despite knowing that ACT services were not medically necessary for the consumers. Omomowo and his co-defendants then allegedly billed Medicaid for ACT services that were not medically necessary as well as for services that did not occur.

Law enforcement arrested Omomowo earlier today in Fort Lauderdale. He made his initial appearance earlier today in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. Co-defendant Zilah Bessem, 36, a resident of Frisco, Texas, who previously lived in Maryland, was charged in the same indictment and arrested Thursday evening at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.

The remaining four co-defendants – Gregory Clark of Washington, D.C., Ernest Ikomi of Beltsville, Maryland, Diane Mochi of Adelphi, Maryland, and Seraphine Nwufor of Bowie, Maryland – are expected to make their initial appearances in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in the next week.