CHARLOTTE, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) — A Charlotte man schemed to take more than $11 million from the North Carolina Medicaid program, a federal jury said on Tuesday.
The jury found Donald Booker, 57, guilty of multiple charges related to the scheme, according to Dena J. King, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina.
Last month, Booker’s co-defendant Delores Jordan, 54, of Louisville, Kentucky, pleaded guilty to her role in the fraudulent scheme.
Booker owned United Diagnostic Laboratories (UDL), a urine toxicology testing laboratory, and United Youth Care Services (UYCS), which provided mental health and substance abuse treatment services. 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.
Jordan told the court that she and others recruited housing-vulnerable individuals and other Medicaid-eligible beneficiaries for housing and other programs and services.
In the program, beneficiaries submitted mandatory urine specimens for drug testing as a condition of their participation.
The provided specimens went to UDL and UYCS…
