Baltimore County Couple Sentenced to Two Years in Prison for Medicaid Fraud
Ordered to Pay More Than $780,000 in Restitution

BALTIMORE, MD (July 11, 2008) - Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler announced today that Tammy D. Smith, 39, and her husband, Anthony Smith, 40, of the 4200 block of Huntshire Road in Randallstown were each sentenced in Baltimore County Circuit Court to two years incarceration as a result of their convictions of conspiracy, felony Medicaid fraud, and theft. Circuit Court Judge John F. Fader also ordered the couple to pay restitution to the State Medicaid Program in the amount of $783,653.

The evidence in the case established that Tammy Smith, a licensed social worker, and her husband, who handled her billing, submitted thousands of false claims to the Maryland Medicaid program for therapy services that were not performed at all or were different from the services billed for. For example, Ms. Smith billed for services she claimed to have performed on several days when she was a hospital inpatient. She also billed for nine months of multiple therapy services a week for a patient she never saw and who was in the hospital at the time the services were allegedly rendered. The State established that from January, 2000 through December, 2003, Medicaid paid the Smiths nearly $900,000. Although required to do so by the Medicaid regulations, the Smiths failed to document over $700,000 of those services.

The case was prosecuted by the Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit with the assistance of the Mental Hygiene Administration and the Medicaid Program, both of which are part of the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. In making today’s announcement, Attorney General Gansler thanked Assistant Attorneys General Mike Travieso and Tom Rafter and chief investigator Peggy Gayhardt for their work on the case.