Princess Terry, 27, has been sentenced to 65 months in federal prison for healthcare fraud and aggravated identity theft, and has also been charged with wire fraud and making a false statement in connection with a loan application. Terry owned and operated Caring Hearts Memphis, a home healthcare services business, which purported to provide healthcare services to mostly elderly patients, including home health aides, skilled nursing, and physical and occupational therapy. Between approximately January 1, 2016 and June 27, 2019, Terry submitted over $2 million in fraudulent billing to Humana, a private health insurance provider, for services that were not actually rendered. In executing this scheme, Terry also committed aggravated identity theft by forging patients’ signatures without their knowledge or permission on consent-for-services forms and progress notes containing fraudulent misrepresentations about services not actually performed.
While she was on pretrial release in that case, Terry was also further charged with wire fraud and making a false statement in connection with a loan application. According to information in the unsealed criminal complaint, Terry allegedly executed a scheme to defraud the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), a loan program enacted in response to the COVID-19 public health crisis which provides forgivable loans to small businesses adversely affected by the pandemic. In April and May of 2020, it is alleged that Terry falsely represented to the SBA and two different financial institutions that Caring Hearts Memphis was still a going business with employees and payroll obligations, despite the fact that it had not been in active operation since 2017 and had no employees. She also falsely certified that she was not under indictment, and submitted forged bank statements to document her loan applications. In this manner, Terry fraudulently obtained $290,000 in PPP loan funds.
