Feds: Fairfield woman sentenced to more than two years for health fraud

A Fairfield woman was sentenced to more than two years in federal prison on Friday after pleading guilty to defrauding Medicaid of hundreds of thousands of dollars, the U.S. attorney’s office said.

Jessica Stuart, 38, had been employed by Helping Hands Academy in Bridgeport, an organization that provided services to children with autism. Through her work providing applied behavioral analysis services, Stuart caused Medicaid to pay out more than 1,900 claims for a dozen children diagnosed with autism, the office said.

In total, the claims amounted to more than $339,561, with Stuart herself earning $146,000 between May 2019 and September 2020, investigators claim.

Only Stuart was not a board certified behavior analyst, nor did she have any formal training or a medical license, investigators found. She “does not have a college degree,” a news release noted.

“Stuart stole the professional identity of a legitimate BCBA so she could impersonate a BCBA and make a BCBA’s salary,” the U.S. attorney’s office said.

Investigators believe she also “used fraudulent or fabricated documents, or forged signatures, in other areas of her life,” the office said.

Stuart pleaded guilty to one count of health care fraud and one count of using false identification in connection with health care fraud in June.

On Friday she was sentenced to 27 months in prison followed by three years supervised release.

She is required to report to prison Dec. 3.

The owner of Helping Hands Academy, Nicole Balkas, pleaded guilty to health care fraud in April. She has not yet been sentenced.