Niece of Somali leader convicted in HMO billing scam

[Jacpher]

Niece of Somali leader convicted in HMO billing scam

 

 

Jurors found that Omar, 44, of Eden Prairie, participated in a scheme that bilked more than $1.5 million in medical assistance payments between 2001 and 2004, ostensibly for interpreting services that were never provided.

 

By DAN BROWNING, Star Tribune

 

Last update: December 14, 2007 - 5:57 AM

 

 

Indadeeq Omar, the niece of a former Somali president and a prominent member of the Twin Cities Somali community, was convicted Thursday of a wide-ranging health care fraud and money laundering conspiracy after a six-day federal court trial in Minneapolis.

 

Jurors found that Omar, 44, of Eden Prairie, participated in a scheme that bilked more than $1.5 million in medical assistance payments between 2001 and 2004, ostensibly for interpreting services that were never provided. The indictment says that Omar, her husband, Mohamed Essa, and a former Medica employee named Tou Chaiker Vang conspired to submit phony bills for the services.

 

Vang, 39, of Maplewood, pleaded guilty in the case and testified against Omar. Essa, 51, has fled and remains a fugitive. That left just Omar to stand trial.

 

With her three young daughters looking on, Omar testified Tuesday that she knew nothing about the alleged crimes and merely did what her late brother, Ahmed Omar, had told her to do when she submitted claims for the phantom interpreting services.

 

But assistant U.S. attorneys John Marti and William Otteson put on overwhelming evidence demonstrating that she was president and secretary of Global Interpreters Services Inc., and had overseen the filing of "tens of thousands" of bogus claims to Medica, which processed the Medicaid payments for the government.

 

Marti told jurors in his closing arguments that Omar and her husband had spent the money they got from the scheme lavishly.

They spent $18,000 to whiten Omar's teeth. They paid $205,985 in cash for a down-payment on their $600,000 house. They paid $43,000 for a custom Chrysler 300 C sedan. And they paid about $45,000 a year in tuition for their three daughters, ages 9, 15 and 17, to attend the International School, he said.

 

Omar, who in 2002 received an award for her work with Somali refugees, now faces decades in prison.

 

"These guilty verdicts today send a message about the seriousness of this type of financial fraud," the IRS said in a statement after the verdict. "Health Care Fraud is an emphasis area for our agency and our role in multi-agency task force investigations includes documenting the flow of the money to show how the perpetrators of these schemes financially benefit from their fraudulent activities."

 

Omar is from a prominent family in Somalia. She testified that her father had been the nation's education minister, and her uncle, Ali Scermarke Abdirascid, served as prime minister of Somalia when it gained its independence in 1960. Her maternal uncle was elected to parliament in 1964 and became president in 1967 but was assassinated just over two years later.

 

"The case is bigger than the defendant. It's as if the Somali community is on trial," said Omar Jamal, executive director of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center.

 

Jamal, who attended the trial in U.S. District Court, explained that Omar and Essa touched much of the Somali community with their social work and their interpreting business. Recent clan meetings have focused on the repercussions the case might have, he said.

 

Essa and Omar started a social services organization in Minneapolis called the Somali Community of Minnesota in 1995. Essa was its executive director, while Omar initially kept her full time job at Lutheran Social Services. The couple helped thousands of Somali refugees and were recognized in 2002 with a Virginia McKnight Binger award for human service.

 

Omar testified that she and Essa, who was born in Yemen, were betrothed when she was 8 or 9 years old. Omar moved to the United States in 1982 for schooling and married Essa. Each later became U.S. citizens.

 

When Global Interpreters started in June 1993, Ahmed Omar was listed as the contact person. State records show that the business incorporated in 1996, with Essa as its CEO and Omar as the secretary. They had a 50:50 share.

 

The investigation into their billings began in September 2003, when John Callinan, a former U.S. postal inspector working for Medica, noticed that a lot of Global Interpreter's claims for services failed to match dates for clients' medical clinic visits.

 

Callinan testified that Essa had told him he should see Omar, who was president of the company. Omar failed to turn over records in a timely fashion, he said, so Medica cancelled the Global's contract.

 

Callinan said his investigation found that more than $1.1 million in claims for interpreting services lacked matching clinic visits. He turned the case over to investigators with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Internal Revenue Service.

 

Tou Vang, the Medica employee who served as Global's liaison, testified that he had noticed the same pattern in the late 1990s. Rather than report it, Vang said, he met with Omar and Essa and proposed "doing a scam" on Medica. He said they quickly agreed.

 

Vang said he provided Omar with names of Medica patients and dates that they visited health clinics so that Global could submit bogus bills. He said his cut of the payments was to be 60 percent, and he wanted it in cash.

 

"I was crazy for cars," Vang said.

 

But Omar and Essa paid him with checks made out in the names of fictitious interpreters. He said he deposited the checks into his accounts, collecting more than $200,000.

 

Vang grew concerned about getting caught in 2002, when he sent a fax to Omar complaining that Global was continuing to submit a large number of bills that lacked matching clinic visits.

 

"I found that she had a lot of appointments -- much, much more than what I provided her -- that she just put in herself, just random dates," he said. Vang sent Omar a fax begging her to stop. "This is a life and death situation for me," he wrote.

 

Margot Kraker, Omar and Essa's accountant, testified that she had trouble getting the couple to provide Social Security numbers for the interpreters they hired so that she could send them income tax forms. She explained that such forms were required for any contractors who receive $600 or more in a given year.

 

The government produced evidence showing that the vast majority of payments Global made to its interpreters were in amounts just under $600. And each of the interpreters was paid only once in a given year. Prosecutors said the names were mostly fictitious.

 

Omar, who admitted making out the checks, would often deposit them into her own bank accounts. She denied endorsing them, and said the money was owed to her family members because they had paid the interpreters earlier in cash out of their own funds.

 

Several genuine interpreters, whose names appeared on some of checks that Omar cashed, testified that someone had forged their signatures on the checks, and they denied giving Omar permission to cash any checks.

 

Omar testified that she simply had followed her late brother's instructions when she made out the checks and deposited them.

 

But evidence showed that her brother had suffered several debilitating strokes.

 

Omar also testified that her family had assets in Somalia that gave her the money to spend on the house, car, dental work and school tuition, despite the fact that her brother was receiving Social Security disability payments and her mother was receiving medical assistance.

 

"We had the money," Omar testified earlier this week when questioned about the expenditures.

 

"Money from Medica." Marti said.

 

"From my family heritage," Omar replied.

 

In a blistering closing argument, Marti called Omar's explanations "laughable." Marti also reminded jurors that a former Global employee had testified that Omar tried to get her falsify her testimony. That allegation resulted in a separate charge of witness tampering.

 

Marti recounted the testimony of an IRS agent who said the scheme was based on a "convoluted, extensive, dizzying array of financial transactions." There were nearly 30,000 bad claims filed over four years, amounting to $1.8 million, he said. "At least 85 percent of the claims submitted to Medica were fraudulent."

 

Marti told jurors they should wade through the boxes of evidence and follow the money to see where it ended up. "You look at who gets the money," he said. "$18,000 for shiny white teeth. That's where it ended up," Marti said. "That's greed."

 

Jurors found Omar guilty of all 46 counts. They also determined that the purchase of two of her three homes, as well as her custom car, were obtained with tainted funds, making them subject to forfeiture.

 

Omar remained passive as U.S. District Judge Joan Ericksen read the verdict. Her three children wept. "We're very disappointed. But she will accept whatever fate comes her way," one of her attorneys, Timothy Anderson, said. "But now the focus is on the children and figuring out what to do with them."

 

Ericksen placed Omar under house arrest, giving her a week to resolve such questions.

 

Dan Browning • 612-673-4493

 

Source

 

[Fabregas]

quote:They spent $18,000 to whiten Omar's teeth

 

 

Inalilahi-waina-ileyhirajicun!

[Miskiin-Macruuf-Aqiyaar]

From this:

 

Omar also testified that her family had assets in Somalia that gave her the money to spend on the house, car, dental work and school tuition, despite the fact that her brother was receiving Social Security disability payments and her mother was receiving medical assistance.

To this:

 

Jurors found Omar guilty of all 46 counts. They also determined that the purchase of two of her three homes, as well as her custom car, were obtained with tainted funds, making them subject to forfeiture.

And this iigu sii daran:

 

"The case is bigger than the defendant. It's as if the Somali community is on trial," said Omar Jamal, executive director of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center.

War magaca Soomaali daa. Tuug la qabtay, talo maleh ayaa la dhihi jiray. She tried to milk the system, waana la qabtay. Duqeedana in uu cararo ma ahayn fuleynimo daraadiis, in uu iyada ugu tago meesha kaligeed to face those charges.

[Som@li]

quote:They spent $18,000 to whiten Omar's teeth

 

 

Inalilahi-waina-ileyhirajicun!

Stealing in smart way, requires great smile,like this

[Baluug]

I guess her name should be ilko-cadde rather than Indhadeeq.

[Aaliyyah]

they spent $18,000 to whiten Omar's teeth. They paid $205,985 in cash for a down-payment on their $600,000 house. They paid $43,000 for a custom Chrysler 300 C sedan. And they paid about $45,000 a year in tuition for their three daughters, ages 9, 15 and 17, to attend the International School, he said.

 

waxa loga shakiyey qabaan

[Al-Muminah]

Salaama Alaykum,

 

Subhanallah this is sick. I wonder why she had to say that she was the neice of one the late president(s)?

 

I hope she gets what she deserves. Disgusting. :mad:

[Kool_Kat]

"$18,000 for shiny white teeth."

Eebas hee, ilkaha guduud mee ahaayeen...Hay...

 

I got one word for her Kusban - RAGEEDII!!!

 

Nacasta mexee meesha u sii fadhiday, daa jail haku go'go dee...Money from family heritage, LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL...Can that family adopt me? Doqon lee iga dheh...

[The Zack]

They paid $205,985 in cash for a down-payment on their $600,000 house.

Now that is what I call Guri Qaali ah!

 

Ani hadda ciyaalka lee u naxsanahay.

[Allamagan]

It is likely that she already fled the country and already in Somalia.

[winnie]

hey, youre missing the big picture. the dudes teeth must have been terrible, think of the social stigma people. BAD BREATH CLOSES DOORS!!!

[nuune]

^^^ lool, no one looked in dat angle I presume

[Jacaylbaro]

Soomaalidu sida lacagta loo cuno ma yaqaanaan ,,, markiiba fadhadhaqday geeyaan

[Shumey]

sad for the kids

[Pujah]

Some people take greed to whole new level :eek: