WASHINGTON — The general manager of a Southern California ambulance company was sentenced Monday to seven years and three months in federal prison for his role in a $5.5 million scheme to defraud the Medicare program, which included billing for people they didn’t transport.
Wesley Harlan Kingsbury, 34, of Bloomington, California, pleaded guilty on Sept. 15, to one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud, one count of conspiracy to obstruct a Medicare audit and one count of making materially false statements to federal law enforcement officers.
In addition to the prison sentence, U.S. District Judge Dale S. Fischer ordered Kingsbury to pay $1.3 million as restitution.
According to admissions made in connection with his guilty plea, Kingsbury was the general manager of Alpha Ambulance Inc., which specialized in the provision of non-emergency ambulance transportation services to Medicare beneficiaries, primarily to and from dialysis treatments.
Kingsbury admitted that between April 2010 and July 2012, he conspired with the owners of Alpha, Alex Kapri and Aleksey Muratov, and the training supervisor, Danielle Medina, to bill Medicare for ambulance transportation services for individuals that did not need to be transported by ambulance.
In addition, officials said that as general manager, Kingsbury instructed emergency medical technicians employed by Alpha to conceal the true medical condition of patients they were transporting by altering paperwork and creating false justifications for the transportation services.
Further, according to admissions in connection with Kingsbury’s guilty plea, in April 2012, Kingsbury was approached by law enforcement officers and asked to assist with the investigation into Alpha.
Kingsbury disclosed to the owners of Alpha the names of the law enforcement officers who were conducting the investigation and the questions they had asked.
On May 1, 2012, Kingsbury falsely denied to the law enforcement agents that he had disclosed that information to the owners of Alpha.
Kapri, Muratov and Medina pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit health care fraud on Oct. 28, 2013. They were sentenced to more than six years, nine years, and two years and six months in prison, respectively, officials said.