Mississippi Man Indicted for Wire Fraud and Health Care Fraud

 BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – A federal grand jury returned an eight-count indictment yesterday charging a Mississippi man with wire fraud and health care fraud and with conspiracy to commit wire and health care fraud, announced U.S. Attorney Prim F. Escalona and Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General, Special Agent in Charge Derrick Jackson.

According to the indictment, in October 2016, Phillip Anthony Minga, 55, of Amory, MS, was excluded from providing services to Medicare participants.  Minga also signed an agreement  which provided that Medicare would not pay claims submitted by anyone who employed Minga  in a management or administrative role.  The indictment  charges, however, that Minga and others concealed his ownership interests and managerial roles in multiple pharmacies and caused the submission of millions of dollars in  claims for reimbursement to Medicare, in violation of his exclusion agreement.

If convicted, Minga faces a maximum of twenty years in prison for wire fraud and ten years in prison for health care fraud, and a $250,000 fine. 

The Department of Health and Human Services, Office of  Inspector General, investigated the case along with the State of Mississippi’s Office of the Attorney General and the State of Alabama’s State Board of Pharmacy. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Lloyd Peeples and Don Long are prosecuting the case.

An indictment contains only charges.  A defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.