Two Illinois home health care company owners were sentenced Sept. 29, 2022, as part of a $6.7 million home health care fraud scheme, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
 
Patricia Omorogbe, 61, of Lansing, a registered nurse, was sentenced to two years in prison. Felix Omorogbe, 71, of Lansing, was sentenced to 18 months in prison. Patricia Omorogbe was also ordered to pay $6,643,094 in restitution. Felix Omorogbe was ordered to pay $1,592,362 in restitution.
 
Omorogbes owned and operated three home health companies and, from approximately January 2009 to June 2018, secretly paid bribes and kickbacks to patient marketers in exchange for referrals of Medicare beneficiaries to the companies, according to a DOJ release.
 
Patricia Omorogbe signed sham contracts with patient marketers on behalf of the companies, while Felix Omorogbe facilitated kickback payments to marketers by writing checks to himself and agency employees, who would then convert the checks to cash that was used to pay kickbacks to marketers, according to a DOJ release.
 
Patricia Omorogbe caused fraudulent claims to be submitted to Medicare for home health services that falsely represented that she, as a registered nurse, performed assessments of patients on dates when she was out of the country.
 
Read more from the DOJ: https://bit.ly/3ydHR8T.