The owner and operator of a Los Angeles-based durable medical equipment company has been sentenced to 46 months in prison for a power wheelchair scheme to defraud Medicare.
U.S. District Judge Dale S. Fischer, of the Central District of California, also ordered Sylvester Ijewere, 49, to make restitution of $211,755 and serve three years of supervised release following his prison term.
Ijewere pleaded guilty on April 12 to healthcare fraud.
The owner of Maydads Medical Supply, he admitted that, between June 2007 and October 2009, he conspired with others to purchase fraudulent prescriptions and medical documents which he used to submit false claims to Medicare for expensive, high-end power wheelchairs and other equipment.
According to investigators, Ijewere received approximately $4,000 in reimbursement payments for each power wheelchair claim he submitted to Medicare. About half of the Medicare beneficiaries to whom Ijewere claimed Maydads had supplied power wheelchairs and other equipment lived more than 100 miles from Maydads' Los Angeles-area offices in Central and Northern California.
As a result of this scheme, investigators say, Ijewere submitted or caused the submission of approximately $471,345 in false and fraudulent claims to Medicare through Maydads.
The case was brought as part of the Medicare Fraud Strike Force, supervised by the Criminal Division's Fraud Section and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California.
Since inception in March 2007, Strike Force operations in seven districts have obtained indictments of more than 810 individuals who collectively have falsely billed the Medicare program for more than $1.85 billion.