Aides at Bingo Hall, Grocery Store, While on the Taxpayer’s Clock

CDRNYS

Aides at Bingo Hall, Grocery Store, While on the Taxpayer’s Clock

Reported by: Jane Flasch
Email: jflasch@13wham.com
13WHAM-TV, NY – February 13, 2009

(Rochester, N.Y.) – On October 2, Medicaid worker Denise Wright was supposed to work the 4 p.m. to midnight shift caring for a disabled man in his home. But, after two hours on the job, she left.

Fraud investigators tailed her to Mason Street where she picked up a friend. The two hit a deli for lunch and then went shopping at the Tops on Lake Avenue Tops. They took full grocery bags back to Wright’s house.

According to surveillance reports, Wright returned to the man’s home to work the final hour of her shift.

The criminal complaint says the 51-year-old victim is paralyzed from the waist down and unable to leave his bed without help. On this shift, on this day he was left alone for five hours.

Bruce Darling of the Center for Disability Rights said, “People can end up hospitalized and can have serious complications.”

He would not comment on this case, but says people in this program cannot get by alone.

“People who need attendants to assist them with meal preps and toileting, feeding and eating… those are the things they need help with, so it’s vital they’re there the hours they’re supposed to be there,” Darling said.

But there are other victims here, taxpayers. On the day Wright worked less than three hours, she billed Medicaid for eight hours.

She also admitted spending part of the time on the clock playing Bingo.

To make this story worse, she’s not the only one.

On November 7, police say Petrina Mason left the same client’s home two and a half hours into her shift to drive 20 minutes to Bingo Palace on East Ridge Road. She was gone for four hours.

Petrina Mason and Priscilla McCauley have been charged with defrauding taxpayers and face grand jury action.

Denise Wright and Loretta Lowrie pleaded guilty to similar charges.

More than 300 people in Monroe County are able to stay in their homes with the help of personal assistants paid by Medicaid.

As a result, the clients get independence and the taxpayers get a lower bill, they don’t have to pay for expensive nursing home care or home nurses, which can cost over $90 an hour.

However, in these cases, taxpayers were paying thousands of dollars for work that was never performed.

Time sheets are carefully watched, it became apparent the victim was going without medical and other types of help. In this case there were several red flags that lead to the investigation.