Nigerian Man Faces Six-Year Sentence in U.S. for $6 Million Medicaid Fraud Scheme

Ifeanyi Ozoh, a 54-year-old Nigerian national, has been sentenced to six years in federal prison in the United States.

This sentence follows his conviction for orchestrating a complex healthcare kickback scheme that defrauded Medicaid of millions of dollars.

According to a statement from U.S. Attorney Alambar Hamdani, published on the U.S. Department of Justice website, Ozoh was found guilty by a federal jury on February 14, 2024, after just an hour of deliberation following a three-day trial.

The court proceedings revealed that Ozoh played a pivotal role in the fraudulent activities at Floss Family Dentalcare Center, where he worked from January 2020 to February 2021.

The scheme involved paying marketers between $20 and $100 for each Medicaid-insured child they referred to the clinic.

These referrals were part of a broader strategy to inflate patient numbers fraudulently. As a result, Floss billed Medicaid over $6 million, receiving more than $4 million in payments for services that were largely not provided.

The court heard that Ozoh paid out over $163,000 in bribes and received bonuses for meeting patient quotas, despite repeated warnings from a clinic manager about the illegality of such practices.

U.S. District Chief Judge Randy Crane, who presided over the case, sentenced Ozoh to 72 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release.

Additionally, Ozoh has been ordered to pay $4.9 million in restitution to Medicaid. The judge emphasized the "overwhelming evidence of Ozoh’s guilt" presented during the trial.

The investigation into this case was conducted by the FBI, the Texas Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, and the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Inspector General. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Kathryn Olson and Lauren Valenti led the prosecution.