The owner of another Milwaukee prenatal care company that was supposed to help prevent babies from dying before their first birthdays is expected to admit to stealing more than $5.4 million from Medicaid, federal court records show.
Jasmine Cooper, who owned and operated Bundle of Love Prenatal LLC, has signed a plea deal that will include pleading guilty to health care fraud and aggravated identity theft, both felonies, and agreeing to forfeit the money “traceable to the offense,” the records show.
Cooper is accused of submitting false claims to Medicaid for her clients and instructing her employees to falsify billing submissions to Medicaid, “knowingly misstating the duration, frequency, date and nature of the services provided,” records show.
She is also accused of incentivizing her employees to inflate their billings by tying their compensation to the amount that Bundle of Love billed to Medicaid and submitting claims based on false and fraudulent statements and for services that were never provided. That included claims submitted on dates before clients met Bundle of Love workers or enrolled in the program, according to court records.
Cooper, 37, is expected to enter a guilty plea during a July 9 hearing at the federal courthouse in downtown Milwaukee.
Her attorney, Kathleen Quinn, said she would be “in a better position to comment” after that date.
Cooper’s case was listed as part of a nationwide, $6.5 billion healthcare fraud takedown announced by the U.S. Department of Justice on June 24. More than 450 people across 45 states have been charged in connection with the effort.
Her case and others against former prenatal care coordination company owners and associates come after a 2022 Journal Sentinel investigation into the industry. The companies are meant to help connect low-income pregnant women and mothers with badly needed health, counseling and referral services, but the industry has been plagued by fraud in recent years.
The newspaper’s investigation uncovered widespread problems with fraudulent billing at a number of Milwaukee-area prenatal care coordination companies, or PNCCs, including charging taxpayers for services that were never provided and product giveaways at “community baby showers” used to obtain mothers’ Medicaid numbers, which allowed some companies to submit fake bills to Medicaid.
The state has long had one of the highest rates of Black infant mortality in the nation. In Wisconsin, Black babies are three times more likely to die than white babies, and Black women are five times more likely to die from complications linked to pregnancy and childbirth.
The state suspended Medicaid funding to Bundle of Love in late December 2022 after regulators with the state Department of Health Services’ Office of the Inspector General found credible allegations of fraud. The group was “engaged in multiple schemes to defraud the Wisconsin Medicaid program,” state regulators said in documents obtained by the Journal Sentinel in 2023 through an open records request.
Cooper at the time blamed any wrongdoing on subcontractors and clients, and said she was appealing the suspension.
Three other former prenatal care company owners investigated by the Journal Sentinel – Markita Barnes, Precious Cruse and Lakia Jackson – were convicted and sentenced in recent months.
Another prenatal care coordination provider named Demaryl Howard, who owned and operated Fortunate Futures, has signed a deal that will include pleading guilty to one count of felony health care fraud and agreeing to forfeit $4.3 million.
Howard, 54, is expected to enter a guilty plea during a June 26 hearing in Milwaukee.
Cooper’s guilty plea would bring the total to six Milwaukee-area prenatal care coordination company owners and associates who have been convicted of felonies in recent months.
Precious Cruse, who ran Caring Through Love on Milwaukee’s northwest side, was sentenced in January to more than nine years in prison and ordered to pay about $780,000 in restitution. Cruse was convicted on 17 federal felony charges, including health care fraud and identity theft.
Markita Barnes, who ran Here for You Prenatal Care Coordination Services, was found guilty in November of 20 federal felony charges, including health care fraud, identity theft, paying kickbacks and obstructing a fraud investigation after a jury found that she pocketed $2.3 million in Medicaid money. Barnes was sentenced in March to just over 10 years in prison.
LaKia Jackson, who ran the now-defunct We Care Services, pleaded guilty in December to health care fraud and identity theft, both felonies. Jackson, who stole about $2.6 million in Medicaid money, was sentenced in March to five years in prison.
The cases, which have been prosecuted by Julie Stewart and Kate Biebel, both assistant U.S. attorneys, followed investigations by the FBI and the state Department of Justice’s Medicaid Fraud Control and Elder Abuse Unit.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee prenatal company owner to plead guilty in $5.4M Medicaid fraud case
Reporting by Mary Spicuzza, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Mary Spicuzza, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel | USA TODAY Network
