Date: January 10, 2023 Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov A federal jury in Charlotte has convicted Donald Booker, of Charlotte, of multiple federal charges in connection with a scheme to obtain more than $11 million from the North Carolina Medicaid program, announced Dena J. King, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina. On December 9, 2022, Booker's co-defendant, Delores Jordan, of Louisville, Kentucky, pleaded guilty for her role in the fraudulent scheme. Joining U.S. Attorney King in making today's announcement are Donald "Trey" Eakins, Special Agent in Charge of the Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation Division, (IRS-CI) Charlotte Field Office, Michael C. Scherck, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Charlotte Division, and North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein, who oversees the North Carolina Medicaid Investigations Division (MID). According to filed court documents, trial evidence and witness testimony, Booker owned United Diagnostic Laboratories (UDL), a urine toxicology testing laboratory, and United Youth Care Services (UYCS), a company that provided mental health and substance abuse treatment services. Booker's co-defendant, Jordan, owned Legacy Housing, a housing provider. Trial evidence established that, from January 2016 to August 2019, Booker and his co-conspirators executed a conspiracy to defraud the North Carolina Medicaid program by paying illegal kickbacks to Jordan and other co-conspirators in exchange for urine samples from Medicaid-eligible beneficiaries. As Jordan previously admitted in court, she and other co-conspirators recruited housing-vulnerable individuals and other Medicaid-eligible beneficiaries for housing and other programs and services. Once enrolled, the beneficiaries were required to submit urine specimens for drug testing as a condition of their participation in the program. The specimens were provided to UDL and UYCS for medically unnecessary urine drug testing. Booker and his co-conspirators paid the recruiters a kickback from UYCS's NC Medicaid reimbursement on the drug testing. According to evidence presented at trial, Booker and Jordan also executed a conspiracy to launder the proceeds of the kickback and health care fraud conspiracy in order to conceal and disguise the nature and source of UYCS's illegal kickback payments for drug testing referrals. The jury convicted Booker of conspiracy to commit health care fraud, multiple violations of the Anti-Kickback Statute, money laundering conspiracy, and money laundering. Jordan pleaded guilty to healthcare fraud conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy. A sentencing date for the defendants has not been set. IRS-CI, the FBI, and NC Medicaid Investigations Division investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Graham Billings and Michael Savage of the U.S. Attorney's Office in Charlotte are prosecuting the case.
