Opinion ID: 2800429
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: wire fraud, and

Text: (4) conspiracy to defraud Medicare and make false statements: an agreement, tacit or explicit. We consider each in turn. To convict the Medlocks of making false statements to Medicare, the government needed to prove that they knowingly made false statements or representations in connection with delivery of or payment for health-care benefits in a matter involving Medicare. The government showed that Woody and Kathy Medlock both did so, for example, by signing or directing employees to sign run tickets that said patients were on stretchers when they were not. To convict the Medlocks of health-care fraud, the government needed to put on evidence that Woody and Kathy Medlock knowingly devised a scheme or artifice to defraud a health-care benefit program in connection with delivery of or payment for health-care benefits, that they executed the same, and that they did so with an intent to defraud. The government demonstrated that Woody Medlock knew of the scheme and acted in furtherance of it, e.g., by signing Medicare provider forms. And the government showed that Kathy Medlock was in charge of the billing office, and directed employees to further the scheme. The elements of the health-care-fraud charge satisfy the wire-fraud charge, except for the use of interstate wire communications in furtherance of the scheme to defraud. The government showed that the government paid MAS through wire transfers. Finally, to prove the conspiracy charge, the government needed to put on evidence of an agreement, tacit or explicit. The government’s evidence of actual fraud, as well as of Woody Medlock’s and Kathy Medlock’s knowledge thereof and benefit therefrom, sufficed to evidence a tacit agreement to defraud Medicare. No. 14-5084 United States v. Medlock, et ux. Page 14