US District Judge Stephen R. Clark sentenced a woman from St. Charles to four years and nine months in prison for her role in a $2.5 million fraud involving Missouri’s Medicaid program and a nearly $60,000 fraudulent Paycheck Protection Program loan. Judge Clark also ordered Barbara Martin, 63, to repay $2,566,989 to Missouri’s Medicaid program and $58,295 to the US Small Business Administration. Martin pleaded guilty on June 28 to conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud and bank fraud conspiracy. She admitted being the administrator for Legacy Consumer Directed Services, a business that fraudulently enrolled in 2013 in the Missouri Medicaid program to provide personal care services.
Martin falsely listed the name of her daughter, Zamika Walls, on the application to conceal her own role and the role of her sister, Margo Taylor, as the people who ran the day-to-day operations of the company. Walls was listed as the director of the company but was not involved in its operation. Had Martin listed her name or Taylor’s, the application would not have been approved as they did not meet the enrollment criteria. On the application, Martin falsely checked “no” in response to the question asking whether the applying provider had ever been convicted of a crime. Legacy billed the Missouri Medicaid program a total of over $2.5 million between May 2014 and September 2020. Some of that money was for care that was never provided, as Martin, Walls and another child of Martin not named in court documents were out of town on trips to Miami, Las Vegas, or Atlanta when Martin claimed they were providing personal care services for Medicaid clients and Walls lived in Atlanta.
Zamika Walls, 38, was sentenced September 21 to 15 months in prison and ordered to repay $127,491. She pleaded guilty June 16 to the same charges as her mother. Taylor, 66, pleaded guilty July 11 to two counts of healthcare fraud and is scheduled to be sentenced October 19.
