Here’s news I missed last week: Two employees with the Macon County Board of Elections were among those indicted for fraud. The catch is that it’s the just the regular money kind of fraud.
Five people in Georgia—including two election officials with a county government—have been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of orchestrating a multi-million dollar healthcare scheme.
Sure seems to be a lot of healthcare fraud popping up recently. Almost like someone made it easier to cheat…
An unsealed indictment names Dawn James-Ellis, Angela Childs, Adrian Harris, Lamonica Lakes and Tarshea Fudge-Riley as defendants, all facing charges of conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud.
Fudge-Riley and Lakes are employees with the Macon County Board of Elections.
All five pleaded not guilty when they appeared before a federal judge this week. The case against them involves the alleged submission of fraudulent medical claims to insurers for mental health services that were never delivered.
Prosecutors have accused James-Ellis, a licensed therapist, of billing Cigna, Aetna and other companies for mental health counseling sessions that never happened. As part of the conspiracy, the other defendants were allegedly willing accomplices, who served as would-be patients to have their insurance billed.
James-Ellis, who also faces a charge of identity theft, would allegedly send kickbacks to the others after she received payment from health plans.
To cover her tracks, it’s alleged she had the “patients” create session notes to solidify the idea that services were delivered through James-Ellis’s practice, called Therapy on the Go.
Authorities maintain that the fraud scheme involved millions of dollars exchanging hands, but no specific figure was revealed. For now, the case is in its early stages, and facts allowed at trial will be decided during future hearings.
It’s believed incidents of fraud spanned nearly four years. The indictment claims the conspiracy began in January 2019 and ended sometime in December 2022.
So we have two Georgia already accused of participating in a fraud ring that started before the disputed 2020 Presidential election. Macon is a small county that went for Biden in 2020. Perhaps too small to make a notable difference, but here are two election officials already (allegedly) engaged in one type of fraud. Why not another?
In any case, pious declarations that Georgia election officials are beyond moral reproach appear to be misguided…