WHAT A HEEL: Benefits Manager Loots Brain-Injured Children’s Fund

Iris Allen, 44, formerly a benefits manager for VA’s Birth-Related Neurological Injury Compensation Program – a state fund that provides lifetime medical care to infants permanently brain damaged at birth by oxygen loss – pleaded guilty to one count of health-care fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft for embezzling nearly $800,000 from the program, reports the Richmond Times-Dispatch:

 

Allen worked for the program … from December 2004 until bookkeeping irregularities were discovered last March.

 

The charges to which Allen pleaded guilty deal with invoices applying to a Roanoke family whose child was born with severe brain injuries. The full indictment against Allen in October identified 10 other families affected by Allen's dealings.

 

Allen, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Laura C. Marshall, created bogus companies supposedly involved in van conversions and home renovations through which she billed the program. …

 

Marshall told the court yesterday that the use of approximately $525,000 of the money has been accounted for, partly with Allen's help, but that as much as one-third of that money is not recoverable. …

 

Some portion of the money went toward the purchase of clothes for a consignment shop Allen operated, Marshall told the court, adding that anything of substance Allen owned will be forfeited and sold to repay the program.

 

Allen, who agreed to pay $674,335 restitution to the program and another $110,000 to a PA insurance company, faces a mandatory two-year prison term on the identity-theft conviction and up to 10 years more on the health-care-fraud conviction.

Posted by The Stiletto at February 15, 2010
Categories: What a Heel
 

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