6 from rehab centers indicted in $48 million fraud
The owner and manager of a now-shuttered drug-and-alcohol rehab center in Whitehall that was raided by investigators in 2017 were among a halfdozen people indicted Thursday, accused of billing Medicaid for $48 million in services that were not provided, not properly documented or otherwise ineligible for reimbursement.
Ryan Sheridan,
38, from Leetonia in Columbiana County, and Lisa Pertee, 50, of Sunbury, were named in a 60-count indictment unsealed in federal court in Cleveland.
Four others —Jennifer M. Sheridan, 40, and Arthur H. Smith, 54, both of Austintown, and Thomas Bailey, 44, of Poland — both towns are in Mahoning County — and Kortney L. Gherardi, 29, of Girard in Trumbull County — also are charged.
Ryan Sheridan, who owned Braking Point Recovery Centers in Whitehall and Austintown, faces counts of conspiracy to commit health-care fraud, health-care fraud, conspiracy to distribute controlled substances, use of a registration number issued to another to obtain a controlled substance, operating a drug premises and money laundering, according to court documents. The most-serious of the counts against him carries a potential prison sentence of up to 20 years.
Pertee, operations director at the former Braking Point location at 4040 E. Broad St. in Whitehall, faces counts of conspiracy to commit health-care fraud and use of a registration number issued to another to obtain a controlled substance, according to documents. The mostserious count carries up to 10 years in prison.
Prosecutors say the defendants billed for drug and alcohol services that cost more than what was actually provided and without proper documentation or valid diagnoses, among other issues. According to documents, “Braking Point submitted approximately 134,744 claims to Medicaid for more than $48.5 million in services it claimed to provide between May 2015 and October 2017.
The claims caused Medicaid to pay Braking Point more than $31 million.”
Payments to the center were suspended in October 2017, and locations subsequently were raided by investigators. At the time, more than 35 people receiving some type of treatment at the 16-bed Whitehall facility were linked to other treatment centers.
Thursday’s filing includes forfeiture provisions, with prosecutors seeking more than $2.2 million seized from a bank account, $390,000 in currency seized from Ryan Sheridan’s residence, nearly $3 million in property in Columbiana, Mahoning and Trumbull counties and replicas of vehicles used in the movies “Back to the Future,” “Ghostbusters” and “Batman,” according to documents.