Woodland Hills
Prison Term For Medicare Scam
By Damian Kelly
Jul 10, 2012 - 9:46:07 PM

WOODLAND HILLS—On Monday, July 9, a co-owner of two Southern California medical supply companies was sentenced to 42 months in federal prison for a scheme that could have stolen approximately $20 million from Medicare through phony claims.

The offices of Prosperity Home Health Services Inc. Photo courtesy of City-Data website

According to reports, Camillus Ehigie, 51, a Nigerian citizen and a resident of Woodland Hills, will be required to pay $7 million in restitution and to serve three years of supervised release after completing his prison sentence as ordered by U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson.

Ehigie, who co-owned and operated Prosperity Home Health Services Inc., a home health agency, and Caravan Medical Supplies Inc., a durable medical equipment firm, pleaded guilty to multiple health-care fraud charges.

Federal prosecutors say that from October 2002 to February 2011, Ehigie and co-defendant Evans Oniha of Rancho Palos Verdes conspired with others to defraud Medicare by paying marketers for beneficiary information, fraudulent prescriptions and other documents for medical equipment and home health care services.

Prosecutors added that fake documents were used by the defendants to bill Medicare for services that were not medically necessary and that were usually not provided to Medicare beneficiaries.

Oniha, 49, who was charged with one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud, four counts of health care fraud and one count of false statements relating to health care matters, was found guilty by a Los Angeles federal jury last year.

For his role in the scheme, Oniha was sentenced in February to eight years in federal prison and ordered to pay a share of the $7 million in restitution and to serve three years of supervised release.