Houston clinic owner sentenced in $17 million Medicare fraud scheme

The owner of a string of Houston home health care clinics was sentenced to 40 years in federal prison Thursday for a brazen scheme involving more than $17 million in fraudulent Medicaid and Medicare billing.

"I'm not here to pass the buck," Godwin Oriakhi, who ran the five clinics, told U.S. District Judge Sim Lake before sentencing. "I never set out in any way to defraud the government."

Defense lawyer Sean Ryan Buckley said prior to sentencing that Oriakhi did not live an opulent life but got caught up trying to pay expenses for his business.

"Like so many Medicare cases we see in federal courts throughout the United States, it starts out as a well-meaning business endeavor and at some point the money involved in these cases becomes intoxicating and people lose perspective and fail to exercise sound judgment," Buckley said. "The fatal mistake was payment of kickbacks for bringing in clients."

Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Owner-of-clinics-for-developmentally-disabled-to-11863079.php