CHARLOTTE, N.C. – An Arizona woman was sentenced to prison today for participating in a scheme that defrauded the Medicaid programs in North Carolina and Georgia of more than $3.7 million, announced Dena J. King, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina. U.S. District Judge Kenneth D. Bell sentenced Bree’Anna Harris, 32, of Phoenix, Arizona, to 36 months in prison and two years of supervised release and ordered the defendant to pay $3,971,649 in restitution.
U.S. Attorney King is joined in making today’s announcement by Ryan K. Buchanan, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, Robert M. DeWitt, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI, Charlotte Division, Donald “Trey” Eakins, Special Agent in Charge of the Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation Division (IRS- CI), Charlotte Field Office, and Attorney General Josh Stein, who oversees the North Carolina Medicaid Investigations Division (MID).
The criminal charge filed against Harris in federal court in the Northern District of Georgia was transferred to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina in November 2022. In December 2022, Harris pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit Medicaid fraud in connection with both federal prosecutions. Harris also pleaded guilty to a money laundering conspiracy offense in the Western District of North Carolina.
According to filed court documents and today’s sentencing hearing, Harris and her co-conspirators, Markuetric Stringfellow and Glenn Pair, operated an after-school and youth mentoring program known as Do-It-4-The Hood Corporation (D4H). From January 2016 through November 2018, Harris, Pair, and Stringfellow paid individuals to recruit at-risk youths, in particular children who were Medicaid eligible in North Carolina, for D4H’s programs. Once enrolled, children were required to submit urine specimens for drug testing. Harris, Pair and Stringfellow conspired with certain laboratories – including United Diagnostics Laboratory (UDL) in Greensboro, North Carolina, and Aspirar Labs in Cary, North Carolina – to perform the drug testing of the enrolled children’s urine specimens and received kickbacks once the laboratories were reimbursed by the North Carolina Medicaid. Harris incorporated BPollini Consulting, LLC to receive and conceal fraudulent kickback payments and distribute them to her coconspirators. In 2017, Harris and Pair moved to Georgia, where they and Stringfellow expanded the fraudulent scheme to defraud Georgia’s Medicaid program.
Harris is currently released on bond. She will be ordered to report to the federal Bureau of Prisons upon designation of a federal facility.
Glenn Pair was sentenced in July 2022 to 70 months in prison, and Markuetric Stringfellow was sentenced in February 2021 to 78 months in prison, and both defendants were ordered to pay more than $5 million in restitution. Donald Booker, the owner of UDL, was convicted after a jury trial in January 2023 and was sentenced to 200 months in prison. Booker was also ordered to pay more than $11 million in restitution. Aspirar Labs and its owner, Pick Chay, agreed to pay $1,951,000 to resolve allegations that they violated the False Claims Act by knowingly billing North Carolina Medicaid for urine drug tests that were not medically necessary and tainted by illegal kickbacks.
In making today’s announcement U.S. Attorney King thanked the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of Georgia, the FBI in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, and the Medicaid Investigations Division in the three states for their investigative efforts and coordination throughout case.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Michael E. Savage and Graham Billings of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Charlotte, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Alex Sistla of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Atlanta prosecuted the case, assisted by Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Jermaine Sellers formerly with the Medicaid Fraud Investigation Division of the North Carolina Attorney General’s Office.