Owners of EMS Company Sentenced to 42 Months in Prison for $3.6M Health Care Fraud Scheme

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Owners of Tritan EMS were sentenced in U.S. District Court for crimes related to a $3.6 million health care fraud scheme.

Jeralyn R. Dougherty, 67, of Dublin, was sentenced Friday to 42 months in prison, ordered to pay more than $3.6 million in restitution, including $873,716 to the IRS, and ordered to forfeit numerous financial accounts.

Clint J. Green, 47, of Orient, Ohio, was sentenced in June 2019 to 42 months in prison, ordered to pay more than $3.3 million in restitution, including $649,671 to the IRS, and ordered to forfeit numerous financial accounts.

In February 2019, Dougherty and Green pleaded guilty to health care fraud and filing false tax returns.

Benjamin C. Glassman, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, William Cheung, Acting Special Agent in Charge, Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Criminal Investigation, Cincinnati Field Office, Lamont Pugh III, Special Agent in Charge, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General, and Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost announced Dougherty’s sentence imposed Friday by Senior U.S. District Judge James L. Graham.

According to court documents, between January 2012 and June 2017 Dougherty and her son, Green, owned and operated Tritan EMS, LLC (Tritan), a medical transportation company and Medicare and Medicaid provider.

Dougherty and Green were aware that Medicare and Medicaid only reimbursed claims for non-emergency ambulance services provided to Medicare recipients who were transported to certain locations, such as a hospitals, skilled nursing facilities or renal dialysis facilities, and only where the patients were being transported to receive Medicare or Medicaid covered services or returning from receiving care for such services.

Dougherty and Green billed Medicare and Medicaid for ambulance services knowing that patients were transported by a vehicle other than an ambulance, and knowing that the patients did not meet the Medicare and Medicaid requirements for ambulance services.

The total amount of fraudulent claims submitted to Medicare and Medicaid at the direction of Dougherty and Green for ambulance services that were medically unnecessary and by a vehicle other than an ambulance was more than $2.7 million.

Dougherty filed false personal tax returns with the IRS for the 2013 through 2016 income tax years. Dougherty misrepresented on her personal tax returns the amount of income she received from Tritan each year. The total tax loss to the IRS was $873,716.

Green also filed false personal tax returns with the IRS for the 2014 through 2016 income tax years, and the total tax loss to the IRS was $649,671.

“Waste, fraud and abuse in the health care industry contributes to the rising cost of health care and degrades the integrity of our health care system,” said William Cheung, Acting Special Agent in Charge, IRS Criminal Investigation. “Fortunately, one of the government's most powerful weapons is the ability to seize assets through the asset forfeiture program and in this case the government has seized a significant portion of the health care fraud proceeds.”

“Those who try to game the health care system will end up losing,” Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said. “I’m proud of my staff and our partners at the federal level for securing justice in this case.”

U.S. Attorney Glassman commended the investigation of this case by the IRS Criminal Investigation, HHS OIG the Ohio Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, as well as Assistant United States Attorneys Kenneth F. Affeldt and Maritsa A. Flaherty, who prosecuted these cases.

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