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."


The 61-year-old proprietor of the clinics was sentenced along with Charles Esechie, 48, the admitting nurse for one of the clinics, who was given a five-year prison sentence to be followed by three years of supervised release.

Oriakhi pleaded guilty in March to two counts of conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud and conspiracy to launder the illegal proceeds of his operation. His daughter, Idia Oriakhi, pleaded guilty in January to conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud and is set for sentencing Nov. 16.

Esechie pleaded guilty in March to one count of conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud. His lawyer, Robert Alton Jones, said he was a well-respected health provider at Harris Health but was swept up into the scheme as a means to cover the family's bills.

"He jumped in water and he realized it was deeper than he thought," he said.

In addition, Jermaine Doleman, a recruiter who admitted to bringing in hundreds of patients-for-hire in exchange for kickbacks, also pleaded guilty and is set for sentencing Wednesday before U.S. District Judge Gray Miller.

According to court documents, Oriakhi and his daughter ran five clinics in the Houston area that purportedly offered community-based support to developmentally disabled people and home visits for people with medical needs or who needed support with basic tasks.

From 2009 to 2016, they submitted claims to Medicare and Medicaid for patients who didn't need or receive the services. They recruited the patients via marketers in exchange for kickbacks.

Investigators also found that Oriakhi paid his staff on a per-patient basis, encouraging them to recruit patients to keep the scheme afloat. The Oriakhis and their co-conspirators directly paid the "patients" via cash, check, Western Union and Moneygram.

In addition, court documents show that the Oriakhi family paid physicians to create false documentation indicating the patients had ailments that qualified them for home health services.

The clinics submitted fraudulent claims for $17.2 million and were reimbursed for nearly $16.2 million, according to court documents.