LOS ANGELES (CNS) – A Covina married couple — a psychologist and a registered nurse — were among 15 defendants facing federal charges Thursday in Los Angeles as part of a crackdown on health care fraud schemes such as sham hospice facilities that pay people without terminal illnesses to pose as dying Medicare beneficiaries.
Gladwin Gill, a 66-year-old psychologist, and his wife, Amelou Gill, a 70-year-old registered nurse were arrested Thursday and charged in Los Angeles federal court.
Prosecutors allege the Gills, who ran a hospice in Glendale, paid illegal kickbacks for patient referrals, submitting more than $5.2 million in fraudulent claims to Medicare for end-of-life services that either were not medically necessary or never provided.
Medicare paid the Gills more than $4 million on the phony claims, funds the couple allegedly put toward mortgage and car payments, air travel and other personal uses, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
The charges were announced at a news conference Thursday in downtown Los Angeles in conjunction with a new national anti-fraud task force. Vice President JD Vance last week held the inaugural meeting of the initiative as the Trump administration seeks to show it’s cracking down on misuse of social programs.
“Hospice is an entirely different level of fraud,” said Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Three nurses, a chiropractor, and the Covina psychologist were among eight defendants recently arrested in the investigation local law enforcement dubbed “Operation Never Say Die.”
First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli blamed Gov. Gavin Newsom for the problem, saying the governor is reigning over a “kingdom of fraud” and refuses to adopt emergency regulations to root out health care lawbreakers.
Newsom responded on social media that new hospice licenses in the state were banned in 2021, and at least 280 licenses have been revoked in the last two years. He said that more than 100 criminal cases dealing with hospice fraud have been filed by state prosecutors.
“The Trump Administration — home to the biggest fraudsters on Earth – – is trying to blame California for issues with THEIR federal programs,” Newsom wrote. “Glad to see the Feds finally taking seriously the fraud in the programs they themselves manage … only 15 months after Trump took office.”
Also arrested Thursday was Lolita Minerd, 65, of Anaheim, a licensed vocational nurse, who owned and operated a hospice in Artesia. According to court papers, Minerd used her company over the last five years to submit more than $9.1 million in fraudulent claims to Medicare, which paid her more than $8.5 million.
Through her company, Minerd allegedly billed Medicare for beneficiaries who were not dying. Investigators found that numerous beneficiaries had common addresses and lived far from the facility, a frequent sign of being recruited for such a scheme, federal prosecutors said.
One beneficiary couple linked to the scheme was approached at a market about signing up and then were visited at home by Minerd and three of her employees, who promised if the couple signed up everything would be free, and they each would receive $300 per month, court papers allege.
The money was delivered in an envelope in cash: $600 per month for six months. Neither beneficiary stated they had a terminal illness, which their physician confirmed. The couple also reported receiving unneeded items such as nutritional shakes, non-prescription vitamins, and wheelchairs, according to federal prosecutors.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office stated that Minerd’s hospice had a non- death discharge rate of approximately 85%, nearly five times the national average of 17.2% from 2021.
“The Southern California region is a high-risk environment for hospice-related and many other forms of health care fraud,” said Akil Davis, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles bureau. “The United States loses hundreds of billions of dollars annually to health care fraud at the expense of all American taxpayers, whose benefits decrease as premiums, co- payments and taxes grow. Our aim is to reverse that trend with `Operation Never Say Die’ and others like it.”
Health care fraud-related charges in the cases announced Thursday carry a possible sentence of up to 10 years in federal prison, prosecutors said.
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