Registered Nurse Sentenced To Two Years In Jail For Long Island Home Care Scam

Attorney General Spitzer announced today that a North Woodmere registered nurse who was paid to provide home health care to several seriously disabled children has been sentenced to two years’ incarceration for stealing nearly $550,000 from the Medicaid program by billing for services she had not provided or that she had not provided as claimed.

Jocelyne Louis-Charpentier, 49, of 1107 Furth Road in North Woodmere, who had previously pleaded guilty to Grand Larceny in the Third Degree and Offering a False Instrument in the First Degree was sentenced on November 4, 2005, by Nassau County Court Judge William Donnino to two consecutive terms of imprisonment of one year on each of the two felony charges. In addition, Louis-Charpentier paid restitution in the amount of $117,057. A civil judgment in the amount of $432,754 was also entered against her in a related civil suit filed her by the Attorney General’s office.

Louis-Charpentier provided services to several Medicaid recipients, including a 6-year-old wheelchair-bound girl, a 3-year-old boy who relied on feeding and breathing tubes, and a 7-year-old boy who breathed only with the assistance of a respirator. According to papers filed by the Attorney General, Louis-Charpentier cheated Medicaid by falsely charging for home-care nursing services on days when she was actually working at a hospital or on days when she was out of the country. She also fraudulently billed Medicaid for providing in-home nursing services to children at times when those children were in school; for services rendered when her RN license had been suspended; and for providing one-on-one nursing care when she was actually caring for two or three recipients simultaneously.

Spitzer thanked the Jacob Nursing Agency and the former English Nursing Agency for their cooperation and assistance in the investigation.

Special Assistant Attorney General Lara Merchan, assigned to the Long Island Regional Office of the Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit (MFCU), prosecuted the criminal case. Special Investigator Stephen Nicastro, under the supervision of Senior Special Investigator Greg Muroff, and Principal Special Auditor Investigator Daniel Asnis and Associate Special Auditor Investigator Joann Satchwill, under the supervision of Supervising Special Auditor Ronald Tysowski, assisted in the criminal investigation. Special Assistant Attorneys General Paul J. Mahoney, director of the MFCU’s Civil Enforcement Section, and Elizabeth Bogran, represented the State in the civil proceedings.