Queens Adult Day Care Director Pleads Guilty in $127 Million Medicare and Medicaid Fraud Case

A Queens man pleaded guilty Monday to defrauding Medicare and New York State Medicaid of about $127 million, the Justice Department said.

According to the department, Daniel Lee, 57, of Flushing, New York, was a program director at two Flushing social adult day care centers, Happy Life Inc. and Royal Adult Day Care Center. Court documents state that over about ten years, the centers paid cash kickbacks and bribes to Medicaid recipients to enroll them and billed Medicaid for services that were never provided. Some claims were for days when recipients were in the hospital, the department said.

During the same period, Lee and his co-conspirators paid kickbacks and bribes to Medicare and Medicaid patients at a related pharmacy that billed for medically unnecessary prescription drugs, according to the department. Law enforcement recovered more than $100,000 in cash at Happy Life and seized about $900,000 in fraud proceeds from bank accounts.

Lee pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit health care fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. He is scheduled to be sentenced on March 2, 2027, and faces up to 30 years in prison, the department said. A federal judge will determine the sentence.

The case is being investigated by the HHS Office of Inspector General, the FBI, IRS Criminal Investigation and OSC, according to the release.

Source: U.S. Department of Justice.

Originally published by True News: https://truenews.bagleyenterprises.net/stories/960