May 07, 2008
ATLANTA -- A jury found the former chief operating officer of an Alpharetta medical supply company guilty of nearly $1 million in Medicare fraud after a two-week trial in federal district court.
Angela D. Isley, 44, of Atlanta, was found guilty recently on charges of health care fraud, mail fraud and money laundering. Isley, the former COO of Orthoscript Inc., submitted false claims to Medicare for durable medical equipment and embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars from the company and even more from Medicare, according to the U.S. Attorney's office.
According to Nahmias and the evidence presented during trial: Between January 2001 and December 2003, Isley knowingly assigned incorrect product codes to certain wrist braces and walking boots in Orthoscript's inventory to generate higher reimbursements from Medicare. She instructed employees, often over their objections, to file claims with Medicare listing fraudulent product codes pertaining to custom-fabricated wrist braces, when all Orthoscript supplied were cheaper, prefabricated, off-the-shelf items, causing Orthoscript to fraudulently bill Medicare more than $600,000.
Her responsibilities at Orthoscript also included handling and accounting for ordinary business expenses, such as writing checks to vendors. Between April 2001 and April 2004, Isley wrote Orthoscript company checks to personal Capital One credit card bills, and used her sole control over Orthoscript's books to cause these payments, totaling more than $360,000, to be falsely recorded as legitimate business expenses.
The 14 health care fraud counts carry a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 per count. The 35 mail fraud counts each carry a maximum of 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 per count. The three money laundering counts each carry a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 per count, or not more than twice the amount of the criminally derived property in each transaction.
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