Arlinda Moriarty appeared to have it all: a successful business, awards for her work, and even a proclamation from the city for being a good citizen. “Arlinda Moriarty Day!” However, on September 28, 2022, a U.S. Federal Judge issued Moriarty a different kind of proclamation. That was “Arlinda Moriarty is guilty of fraud day!”
Moriarty ran Moriarty Consultants, and three other companies that supposedly provided meal preparation, transportation, and other services to Medicaid recipients in their homes. Using these companies, Moriarty, and sixteen employees comprising of family and friends, submitted millions in bogus bills to Medicaid, for personal assistance services (PAS) they never provided, stealing a total of $87 million in Government Funds.
Employees fabricated time sheets by saying they provided in-home services when they did not. Some of those who submitted claims didn’t even live in Western Pennsylvania. In some cases, as Moriarty acknowledged, Medicaid claims were submitted for PAS care that purportedly occurred while consumers were hospitalized, incarcerated, or deceased. Moriarty paid kickbacks to consumers in exchange for the consumers’ agreement to participate in the submission of fraudulent timesheets in support of Medicaid claims.
Employees also wrote down the names of ghost employees who in exchange received kickbacks for allowing their names to be used. When state auditors came calling, Moriarty and her criminal associates gave them fake paperwork.
Maybe the city proclamation should have been “Cross Check The Paperwork Day” because Moriarty and her sixteen co-fraudsters got caught. One September 28, 2022, Moriarty was sentenced to seven years in federal prison and restitution to the Pennsylvania Medicaid Program of $8.7 million, her share of the scheme total.
Great job by the Medicaid Fraud Unit with the great work on this case.
Today’s Fraud of the Day is based on an article “Once praised, sisters who ran home health care companies head to U.S. prison for massive Medicaid ripoff” published by Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on September 28, 2022
Back in 2017, the City of Pittsburgh gave Arlinda Moriarty a special proclamation for “Arlinda Moriarty Day” in honor of her work as owner of Moriarty Consultants, a home healthcare company.
No one who gave her that recognition knew she was a criminal who had been ripping off millions from Medicaid since 2011. Now she’s headed to federal prison along with her sister and an uncle.
U.S. District Judge Cathy Bissoon on Wednesday sentenced Moriarty, 53, of Cranberry, to seven years behind bars. The judge gave her sister, Daynelle Dickens, 48, of Pittsburgh, two years. Their uncle, Tony Brown, 65, got three years of probation with three months of that on home detention.
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