For Immediate Release:
Wednesday, January 11, 2023
Contact: Nazneen Ahmed
919-716-0060
(RALEIGH) Attorney General Josh Stein announced that Donald Booker of Charlotte was convicted yesterday of conspiracy to commit health care fraud, multiple violations of the Anti-Kickback Statute, money laundering conspiracy, and money laundering.
“I’m grateful to our federal and state partners for helping bring this person to account,” said Attorney General Josh Stein. “Medicaid resources belong to the taxpayers, and we’ll hold accountable anyone who defrauds the program.”
Booker owned United Diagnostics Laboratories (UDL), a urine toxicology testing laboratory, and United Youth Care Services (UYCS), a mental health and substance abuse treatment services provider. Booker’s co-defendant, Delores Jordan, pleaded guilty to health care fraud conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy in December and owned Legacy Housing, a housing provider.
From January 2016 to August 2019, Booker and his co-conspirators defrauded the North Carolina Medicaid program of more than $11 million. Jordan would recruit people who were Medicaid eligible for housing and other programs and services. They would require beneficiaries to submit urine samples when they enrolled in the program, and they provided the samples to Booker and UDL for testing that wasn’t medically necessary. Booker paid illegal kickbacks to Jordan and others in exchange for these urine samples. Booker and Jordan also laundered the proceeds to conceal and disguise the nature and source of the illegal kickback payments.
A sentencing date has not been set. The investigation and prosecution of this case is being handled by the Medicaid Investigations Division, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Charlotte, the Federal Bureau of Investigation – Charlotte Division, and the Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigation Division – Charlotte Field Office.
About the Medicaid Investigations Division (MID)
The Attorney General’s MID investigates and prosecutes health care providers that defraud the Medicaid program, patient abuse of Medicaid recipients, patient abuse of any patient in facilities that receive Medicaid funding, and misappropriation of any patients’ private funds in nursing homes that receive Medicaid funding. To date, the MID has recovered more than $1 billion in restitution and penalties for North Carolina
To report Medicaid fraud or patient abuse in North Carolina, call the MID at 919-881-2320. The MID receives 75 percent of its funding from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under a grant award totaling $6,106,236 for Federal fiscal year (FY) 2022. The remaining 25 percent, totaling $2,035,412 for FY 2022, is funded by the State of North Carolina.
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