Md. Counseling Service Owner Guilty of Medicaid Fraud

Maryland Attorney General J. Joseph Curran, Jr., announced that Stanley Junious Benn, 42, of Rosedale, pleaded guilty to submitting more than $240,000 in false claims to the Medicaid program.

Benn entered a guilty plea before the Honorable Susan Souder in Baltimore County Circuit Court for his actions while operating Resolutions Unlimited Inc., which provided a type of counseling services to eligible Medicaid recipients from 2002 until 2004.

According to the statement of facts read in court, from May, 2002 through November 18, 2003, when a search and seizure warrant was executed on the company’s offices, Benn billed for more than 5,000 counseling services, for which Medicaid paid him more than $340,000.

However, the investigation by the Office of the Attorney General revealed that more than 3,600 of those billings were for services that Benn knew had not been provided by his counselors. In one example noted by the State, Benn billed Medicaid for 166 counseling sessions despite being aware that the client had been seen only 3 times. The total value of all of Benn’s false billings exceeded $245,000.

Sentencing has been scheduled for May 11, 2005.