James T. Jacks
Acting United States Attorney
Northern District of Texas

MEDICAL EQUIPMENT SUPPLIER SENTENCED FOR HEALTH CARE FRAUD

DALLAS — Walter Sanders, of Mesquite, Texas, the owner of Waltco Medical Equipment and Supplies, was sentenced yesterday by U.S. District Judge Jorge A. Solis, to 60 months in federal prison following his guilty plea in July 2008 to one count of paying illegal kickbacks, announced acting U.S. Attorney James T. Jacks of the Northern District of Texas. Sanders was also ordered to pay restitution to the Medicare program of $804,344.42. His former wife, Geneva Sanders, of Memphis, Tennessee, was also convicted for her role in Sanders’ scheme. She was sentenced in November 2008 to 16 months in prison and ordered to pay $132,955.35 restitution.

“The sentence pronounced by the Court yesterday sends a clear message to health care providers that trying to make easy money by cheating Medicare isn’t worth it. There’s nothing easy about serving five years in a federal penitentiary, as I’m sure this defendant will soon find out,” said Mike Fields, Special Agent in Charge of the Dallas Regional Office for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General.

According to documents filed in Court, in 2003, Walter Sanders unlawfully obtained and paid for Medicare patients’ identifying information given to him by Mrs. Sanders, employed at the time as a secretary in the emergency department of a Memphis hospital. Mr. Sanders subsequently sold patient information to several other medical equipment suppliers in the North Texas area and in Houston, Texas. These suppliers used the patients’ names, Medicare numbers, and other information to submit false claims to Medicare seeking reimbursement for providing power wheelchairs that generally cost Medicare about $4,200 each. The claims also falsely reflected that certain physicians in Memphis had examined the patients and issued prescriptions for the wheelchairs.

In total, more than 200 fraudulent claims were submitted to Medicare through Sanders’ scheme, resulting in Medicare payments to the participating medical equipment suppliers of $804,344.42. Many of these suppliers were charged in prior indictments in the Northern District of Texas for committing health care fraud and are serving sentences.

Acting U.S. Attorney Jacks praised the excellent investigative work of Health and Human Services - Office of the Inspector General, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Internal Revenue Service - Criminal Investigation.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Katherine Miller and Sean R. McKenna.

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