Nursing home owners receive probation in Medicaid kickback case
The owners of two New Jersey nursing homes were sentenced to three years of unsupervised probation in connection with violating a state law that bars kickbacks to Medicaid providers in exchange for business. They also were ordered to pay fines and restitution.
Earlier this summer, the owner of Lincoln Rest Home in Jamesburg, NJ, Edward Acquaye, pleaded guilty to accepting $4,800 in kickbacks from the former owner of the Belmar Hometown Pharmacy. He took the money in return for agreeing to use the pharmacy to fill prescriptions for residents who were Medicaid beneficiaries. Edward Sigle, operator of the Country View Care Center in Monroe, NJ, pleaded guilty on a similar charge.The pharmacy operator was sentenced in 2004 to seven years in state prison and ordered to pay $1.1 million in restitution and penalties for fraudulently billing the Medicaid program for prescription drugs that were never provided to Medicaid recipients, according to a release issued by prosecutors.
