Lyneth Nyabiosi and her husband, Willie Evans III pleaded guilty to falsely billing Nyabiosi’s employer, Sheppard Pratt Health Systems, for $2.7M.
Sheppard Pratt, located in Towson, Maryland, is a top rated mental health hospital. From November 2005 to September 2014, Nyabiosi served as the director of the Health Information Management Department (HIM Department) of Sheppard Pratt.
Their plea agreements state that, Nyabiosi and Evans controlled and operated the entity known as IMST, which was created to appear as an independent third party contractor, but was in fact created by the defendants to accomplish the fraud scheme. On March 7, 2007, Nyabiosi, on behalf of Sheppard Pratt, entered into a contract with IMST to manage medical records for Sheppard Pratt. Nyabiosi neglected to inform Sheppard Pratt that both she and her husband were affiliated with IMST, which was in direct violation of Sheppard Pratt’s conflict of interest policy.
From 2007 to 2014, the defendants submitted over 180 false invoices requesting that Sheppard Pratt pay IMST for work which was never performed, or for excessively inflated amounts for the work that was actually performed. Nyabiosi personally approved all of the false invoices, causing Sheppard Pratt to mail checks to IMST totaling $2,742,791. The defendants deposited the money into their bank account for their personal use.
The defendants have agreed to the entry of an order to forfeit and pay restitution of $2,742,791, and to forfeit two residences located in Bear and Newark, Delaware and three vehicles. The defendants face a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison for conspiring to commit mail fraud.
The guilty pleas were announced by United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein and Special Agent in Charge Kevin Perkins of the Federal Bureau of Investigation on Oct. 16.