The chief executive of a healthcare company who donated thousands to Democrats pleaded guilty to fraudulently bilking nearly $2 million from Medicare.
Dike Ajiri, the former CEO of the Chicago-based Mobile Doctors, admitted in a plea deal that he fraudulently ran up Medicare bills by manipulating patient files to collect the maximum amount of money from the system. Ajiri’s actions cost Medicare and the Railroad Retirement Board a total of $1,854,000, the Justice Department announced.
"Beginning no later than 2007 and continuing through August 2013, in the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, and elsewhere, Dike Ajiri did participate in a scheme to defraud a health care benefit program affecting commerce, as defined by Title 18, United States Code, Section 24(b), namely Medicare, and to obtain, by means of materially false and fraudulent pretenses, representations, and promises, money under the custody and control of that program in connection with the delivery of and payment for health care benefits and services," the plea agreement reads.
Ajiri’s company worked with physicians to provide home visits to patients throughout multiple states including Illinois, Michigan, and Indiana. The scheme involved non-physicians determining how Mobile Doctors physicians’ visit to the home of patients were billed based on factors that went beyond medical decision making, the actual services rendered, and the medical conditions of his patients.
Ajiri then personally altered files of many visits and instructed others at his company to do the same.
"Ajiri caused Mobile Doctors to bill Medicare and the Railroad Retirement Board based on his own criteria, rather than solely based on physicians’ medical decision making during the visits," the plea deal says.
Ajiri is facing a maximum of ten years a prison, a $250,000 fine, and may have a term of supervised personal release imposed upon him that cannot total more than three years. The court will also determine a restitution amount to victims of the offense.
The investigation also led to charges against Banio Koroma, a physician from Mobile Doctors, alleging that he falsely certified patients as confined to their homes when they were not actually homebound and therefore did not require specialized care. Koroma will face trial in December.
Ajiri has given nearly $20,000 to Democratic candidates, committees, and political action committees, according to FEC records.
While most of his donations were given to candidates within state of Illinois, including at least $1,500 to Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D., Ill.) and thousands more to state-level candidates, Ajiri’s contributions to Obama for America and the Obama Victory Fund in 2008 and 2012 totaled nearly $3,000.
Ajiri also contributed $2,500 to Rep. Jan Schakowsky’s Progressive Choices PAC in 2011 and has given at least $500 to Missouri Democratic Sen. Claire McKaskill in 2012, among numerous other donations.
Ajiri’s company closed in 2013 following his arrest.
A spokesman for a government watchdog said that these kinds of events are all too common and anyone involved in such schemes should be punished to the fullest extent of the law.
"Unfortunately, this kind of Medicare fraud is all too common. People who rip off the taxpayers this way should be punished to the fullest extent of the law," Citizens Against Government Waste spokesman Curtis Kalin told the Washington Free Beacon. "One would hope strict punishments for these criminals will act as some kind of a deterrent against future schemes."