A former family practice doctor in Huntsville, Alabama, was sentenced for drug crimes, healthcare fraud, and COVID-19 disaster relief fraud. The doctor’s wife, who owned the medical practice, was also sentenced. Judge Liles C. Burke sentenced Francene Aretha Gayle, 50, to 87 months in prison on four opioid prescribing charges, one count of healthcare fraud, and one count of wire fraud. Judge Burke sentenced Schara Monique Davis, 48, to 42 months in prison for one count of healthcare fraud and one count of wire fraud. Each defendant was also ordered to pay $2.2 million in restitution, forfeit $226,815, and pay a fine. According to the defendants’ plea agreements, between about 2014 and early 2020, Gayle was a doctor who operated a multi-clinic practice in Huntsville, Athens, and Killen. Davis owned the practice and served as business manager.
In 2019, the Killen clinic shut down. In March 2020, the Alabama Medical Licensure Commission revoked Gayle’s license, and the other two clinics closed shortly after that. Gayle admitted that she had unlawfully distributed drugs, including oxycodone, hydrocodone, and methadone. Gayle and Davis both admitted to having conspired to commit healthcare fraud for several years by billing insurers for office visits under Gayle’s name even when she did not see the patients, was not in the same building, and sometimes was not in the same town. The defendants knew that the billing scheme was fraudulent. In 2015, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alabama audited the practice and discovered that Gayle was absent, other staff were seeing patients, and yet all office visits were being billed under Gayle’s name. Blue Cross flagged the issue, and Gayle promised it would stop. Instead, the practice continued fraudulently billing insurers for office visits for the next four years. In total, between 2015 and 2020, Medicare, Medicaid, and Blue Cross paid more than $2.3 million for office visits billed under Gayle’s name.
