A Torrington man was sentenced to five years of probation for submitting hundreds of false claims to Medicaid for psychotherapy services while operating a local social services agency, federal prosecutors say.
Maurice Sharpe, 46, of Torrington, was sentenced Thursday in Bridgeport federal court on one count of healthcare fraud and ordered to make $211,131 in restitution for his conviction, the Connecticut U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
According to court records, Sharpe pleaded guilty to Medicaid fraud in 2016, admitting that he submitted false claims for psychotherapy services he said he provided while managing the agency formed by him, his mother, Patricia Lafayette, and another individual, known as Family First Community Support Services LLC in Torrington.
Sharpe at the time told investigators he submitted hundreds of false claims to Medicaid for psychotherapy services purportedly provided to his family members, which were not administered, authorities said.
He also falsified medical records documenting the nature and extent of the services received by his family members, including his children and nieces and nephews, prosecutors said.
Sharpe is one of three people each previously convicted on one count of healthcare fraud.
As previously reported, Lafayette, 62, of Torrington, was sentenced in April 2017 to 21 months in federal prison for defrauding Connecticut’s Medicaid system of about $1.6 million, prosecutors say. She also was ordered to spend three years of supervised release and to pay $1.6 million in restitution.
Also involved in the defrauding scheme was Ann Charlotte Silver, 64, of Morris, who was sentenced in May 2017 to 10 months in federal prison.
In March 2011, Lafayette and another person approached Silver, a licensed clinical social worker and owner of Silver Counseling Services LLC in Canton and Litchfield’s Bantam section.
Investigators said Lafayette knew that the unidentified person had pitched Silver with a scheme to defraud Medicaid by allowing Lafayette and the person to bill Medicaid for psychotherapy services using Silver’s Medicaid provider number.
Services were either performed by unlicensed individuals or not all. In return, Silver kept about $300,000 of the billed proceeds, with Lafayette and the individual retaining the rest, prosecutors said.
