WASHINGTON – A 10-count Indictment, unsealed today in U.S. District Court, charges two executives of a District-based healthcare provider and one of their Community Support Workers in connection with a scheme to bill D.C. Medicaid for mental health services for juveniles that were never provided or were invoiced at grossly inflated rates, causing a loss to the District of Columbia’s Medicaid program that exceeded millions of dollars, announced U.S. Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro.  “No one stealing from taxpayer-funded programs is safe. As alleged, these defendants treated Medicaid as a personal piggy bank in a scheme that caused millions in losses, billing for services never provided while funding luxury vehicles and other extravagant purchases,” said U.S. Attorney Pirro. “We will continue to uncover and prosecute fraud until these schemes are dismantled and taxpayer dollars are protected from abuse.” According to the Indictment, from January 2022 through February 2025, Quality Healthcare Services billed D.C. Medicaid approximately $14 million for Mental Health Rehabilitation Services. Two of the defendants are executives of Quality Healthcare Services, LLC, a Washington D.C.-based provider of mental health rehabilitative services to youth and adolescent beneficiaries from low-income families. A third defendant is a community support worker at Quality Healthcare Services. Mwasi Songambele, 52, is a citizen of Tanzania who resides in Laurel, Maryland, and has a pending final order of removal from the United States. She is charged in the Indictment with one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud, four counts of health care fraud, and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. She is the controlling executive of Quality Healthcare Services, LLC, and runs the day-to-day operations of the company. Maya Cheyo, 31, of Brambleton, Virginia, is charged in the Indictment with one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and two counts of health care fraud. Cheyo, aka “Mwaya Songambele,” is Mwasi Songambele’s daughter and the Chief Operating Officer and Human Resources Director of Quality Healthcare Services, LLC. Vanessa Kuh, 29, of Lanham, Maryland, is charged in the Indictment with one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and two counts of health care fraud. Kuh is a community support worker at Quality Healthcare Services, LLC. According to the Indictment, beginning at least as early as January 2022 and continuing through February 2025, Songambele instructed employees at Quality Healthcare on how to document and bill Medicaid for Mental Health Rehabilitative Services (MHRS). Specifically, Songambele, along Cheyo, Kuh, and at least three other unnamed co-conspirators, allegedly inflated the amount of time spent conducting MHRS or documented MHRS encounters that never occurred. Songambele allegedly instructed the co-conspirators to bill four units, or about one-hour, for all MHRS telehealth encounters even if the call only lasted a few minutes. To avoid scrutiny from D.C. Department of Behavioral Health, the co-conspirators were instructed by Quality Healthcare management to pick a random time for the length of service, between 53 and 67 minutes, to make the length of the telehealth call appear more realistic. Songambele additionally instructed the co-conspirators to “make sure to use” all 600 units for a telehealth consumer—the total amount of units authorized by Medicaid for a consumer during a 180-day period—without regard to medical necessity and without regard to whether the services actually had been performed. Cheyo and Kuh are charged in the Indictment with submitting and causing to be submitted, false and fraudulent claims for payment to D.C. Medicaid for MHRS that were not provided as claimed. The Indictment also seeks the forfeiture of a fleet of luxury vehicles. Those include a 2024 Mercedes-Benz G550W4, a 2023 Mercedes-Benz G550W4, a 2022 Mercedes-Benz 2500 Cargo Van, a 2020 Mercedes-Benz C300W4, and a 2023 Rover Defender. It also seeks the forfeiture of a house on the 7000 block of Tranquility Road in Laurel, Maryland, and a Panthere De Cartier Watch, Medium Model. The investigation was conducted by the FBI Washington Field Office, the D.C. Office of the Inspector General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, and the Department of Health and Human Services – Office of the Inspector General. The matter was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason Facci of the Fraud, Public Corruption, and Civil Rights Section.  On April 7, the Department of Justice announced the creation of the National Fraud Enforcement Division. The Fraud Division is laser-focused on investigating and prosecuting those who commit fraud against the American people. The Department’s work to combat fraud supports President Trump’s Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, a whole-of-government effort chaired by Vice President J.D. Vance to eliminate fraud, waste, and abuse within Federal benefit programs.   26-CR-263