Father and son sentenced in nationwide Affordable Care Act fraud scheme

A father-and-son team who coordinated a scheme of defrauding Affordable Care Act (ACA) programs in 12 states, including Connecticut, have been sentenced to 13 months’ imprisonment and three years of supervised release by U.S. District Judge Alvin W. Thompson in Hartford.

Jeffrey White, 63, and his son Nicholas White, 35, are California residents who fraudulently enrolled individuals in ACA plans in states where the individuals did not live. The Whites invented phony residential leases to concoct their scheme, including Connecticut locations in Danbury, Norwalk, Farmington and Hartford, and they also created false cell phone numbers that transferred directly to them if any calls were made.

The Whites paid the insurance premiums for the individuals, and also paid to have them transported to California for placement in expensive residential substance abuse treatment programs, which billed the ACA plans for thousands of dollars of weekly treatments.

The treatment programs also paid the Whites thousands of dollars in kickbacks for each referral, and some programs offered them a percentage of the money they received from the ACA health insurance plans.

The Whites”™ scheme resulted in ACA plan losses totaling more than $27 million. In addition to Connecticut, the duo took their scam to Arizona, California, Delaware, Indiana, Kentucky, New Jersey, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Texas.

U.S. Attorney John H. Durham of the District of Connecticut stated that the case is believed to be the first involving fraudulent enrollments in ACA plans on a national scale.

The Whites pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud. In addition to their prison sentences, they were ordered to pay restitution for the more than $27 million they siphoned out of the ACA system.