6 Charged With Bogus Overseas Claims for Gun Shot Wounds, Stabbings, Auto Accidents

Five Massachusetts residents and one New York resident have been charged in connection with a health insurance fraud scheme that allegedly involved submitting claims for more than $1 million worth of bogus medical expenses, purportedly incurred during international travel.

According to the prosecutors’ charging documents, the claims submitted to four different insurance companies related to alleged traumatic injuries such as stabbings, hit and run car accidents, as well as gunshot wounds that the defendants claimed they suffered and required hospitalization abroad.

The complaint alleges that the five defendants were in the United States at the time they claimed to be hospitalized in foreign countries and that some of them received unrelated medical services in the United States at the same time they were claiming to have been hospitalized overseas.

In support of the claims, prosecutors allege that the defendants provided fabricated records – including fake bank records purporting to show payment to the treating facilities, bogus medical records purporting to show the medical care provided, and falsified police reports describing the circumstances of shootings or stabbings. In some instances, the details of the claims submitted by or on behalf of the defendants and supporting documentation – including the dates of service, country where the alleged traumatic injuries occurred, and nature and circumstances of the alleged injuries –are nearly identical to one another.

As a result of these fraudulent claims, various health insurance companies were billed over $1 million for services that were never rendered, according to U.S. Attorney Joshua S. Levy and the Boston office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

Those charged with one count each of health care fraud are: Brendon Ashe, of Dorchester; Aqiyla Atherton, of Roxbury; Darline Cobbler, of Randolph; Henry Ezeonyido, of Brockton; Ariel Lambert, of Brooklyn, New York; and Chinenye Nwodim, of Brockton.

All six defendants were released on conditions following initial appearances in federal court in Boston, according to prosecutors.

“We believe they feigned injuries they never suffered and submitted bogus claims for medical treatment rendered in overseas hospitals they never set foot in, while most claimed to be victims of violent crimes that never actually took place,” said Jodi Cohen, FBI special agent in Boston.

The Insurance Fraud Bureau of Massachusetts collaborated with the federal prosecutors in the case.

Topics Auto Claims Gun Liability