Brooklyn Park health care provider gets prison for bilking state's Medicaid plan

The onetime owner of a Twin Cities home health care company is going to prison for cheating Medicaid out of more than $650,000.

John Alemoh Momoh, 52, of Brooklyn Park, was sentenced Monday in federal court in St. Paul to two years for submitting hundreds of bogus billing claims in less than a year's time while operating HopeCare Services Inc. Momoh also was ordered to pay $656,876.59 in restitution.

Momoh's attorney, Matthew Mankey, said his client "cut corners." But unlike many defendants in health-care fraud cases, Mankey said, "Mr. Momoh actually delivered the care that he billed for."

Unfortunately, Mankey said, it's hard to say where all of the money went. "The recordkeeping was just nonexistent," he told U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson.

"This wasn't done for fraud," Mankey said. "This was done because Mr. Momoh simply didn't know what he was doing and was in over his head."

Assistant U.S. Attorney Ann Bildtsen responded that Momoh had submitted 821 false claims to the state of Minnesota's Medicaid program for reimbursement, encompassing seven types of fraud.

These included claims for which there was no documentation whatsoever, she said. What's more, she added, Momoh was warned twice but failed to rectify his billing practices.

She said the Medicaid reporting rules are needed to protect the public and the public's pocketbook. Momoh, she said, is a college graduate, a paralegal, and worked for years as an information technology professional.

"He had the ability to follow the rules. He chose not to," Bildsten said.

Magnuson told Momoh that he suspects he had no intention of defrauding the system when he started out, "but it evolved into a pretty major crime. The bottom line is, you were cheating. When you're cheating in the area where you were cheating, there is no room for errors."

The conviction means Momoh is disqualified from participation in federal health benefit programs, including Medicare and Medicaid.