Date: April 3, 2025
Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov
CINCINNATI — Sharon Romaine Ward formerly of West Chester, was sentenced in U.S. District Court here today to 48 months in prison for fraudulently billing more than $8.5 million to Medicare, Medicaid and Veterans Affairs health care programs between 2015 and 2021.
When Ward started Halo Home Healthcare in 2015, she concealed her ownership of the company because she had a prior felony conviction in 2013 for passing forged and fraudulent prescriptions for oxycodone and hydrocodone while serving as a nurse practitioner in Warren County. As a result of her conviction, the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General excluded her from participating in federal health care programs for a minimum period of ten years.
According to court documents, Halo Home Healthcare routinely overbilled federal healthcare programs, charging them for services it did not perform. In one example cited in court documents, Halo continued to bill Medicaid for home health services while the patient was hospitalized. In addition, between 2017 and 2020, Halo hired over 50 employees with significant criminal histories which ordinarily should have excluded them from providing home health services, including one individual who was charged with a quadruple murder while ostensibly working for Halo.
Ward submitted at least 92,770 claims to Medicaid seeking $8,556,776.58, receiving $8,403,299.24 between 2016 and 2021. Court documents say she also failed to provide accurate information to her business tax return preparer causing false tax returns to be prepared and filed.
Ward pleaded guilty in June 2024 to health care fraud and making or subscribing a false income tax return.
As part of her sentence, Ward will pay $8,403,299.24 in restitution to the Ohio Department of Medicaid and $195,5668.00 to the Department of Veterans Affairs Veterans Healthcare Administration. Ward will also prepare and file corrected business tax returns with the IRS and pay restitution in the amount of $81,617 to the IRS.
Kelly A. Norris, Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, announced the sentence imposed today by Senior U.S. District Judge Susan J. Dlott. This case was investigated by the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the U.S. Secret Service, The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General, and Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost’s Health Care Fraud Section. Assistant United States Attorney Ebunoluwa A. Taiwo is representing the United States in this case.
IRS-CI is the criminal investigative arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money-laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. IRS-CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a 90% federal conviction rate. The agency has 20 field offices located across the U.S. and 14 attaché posts abroad.