
Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson (credit: Getty Images)
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — Twenty-three people have been charged in an alleged Medicaid fraud ring that preyed on the city’s poor, Brooklyn District Attorney Kenneth Thompson said Tuesday.
Thompson said recruiters would stake out homeless shelters, soup kitchens and welfare offices searching for people with Medicaid cards. The recruiters would then allegedly offer them free sneakers if they boarded a van and went to one of several clinics to undergo a battery of unneeded tests. The customers would also be given items such as orthopedic insoles and knee braces that were medically unnecessary.
READ MORE: New York City Public High Schools To Reopen March 22, All Sports To Return Mid-AprilThe clinics would then bill Medicaid for the services and medical products, Thompson told reporters, including WCBS 880’s Alex Silverman.