Valley Stream man arrested for defrauding Medicaid

Kester Atumonyogo, 43, from Valley Stream stood before the New York City Criminal Court in Brooklyn on Feb. 24 to answer to criminal charges of stealing over $1.5 million from Medicaid and Healthfirst, a Medicaid managed care organization.

Atumonyogo is accused of using a fake Social Security number to enroll his company, Monack Medical Supply, Inc., as a participating medical supply provider in Medicaid. The company then filed false claims to Medicaid and Healthfirst, saying that Monack dispensed an enteral nutritional formula to needy pediatric patients.

Enteral nutritional formulas are prescribed by physicians for patients who must obtain nutrients via a feeding tube and cannot metabolize dietary nutrients from substantive food. The Medicaid reimbursement rate for a specialized enteral, nutritional formula is substantially higher than over-the-counter nutritional supplements, but New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and Medicaid Fraud Control Unit’s investigation showed that Monack only dispensed Pediasure or similar over-the-counter nutritional supplements to Medicaid patients, when it dispensed anything at all.

“It’s shameful to steal from Medicaid by exploiting children who rely on the program for their basic health needs,” said Schneiderman.

The investigation also uncovered that Atumonyogo used two different dates of birth and claimed to have been born in two different countries. Using that false identity, he obtained multiple driver’s licenses and two different Social Security numbers that he used interchangeably since the 1990s. The second Social Security number was used to enroll Monack in the Medicaid program.

It is also alleged that Atumonyogo filed income verifications with the New York City Human Resources Administration, claiming that he only made $200 a week, but the investigation found that he received almost $367 thousand from Monack between Jan. 1 2012 and Dec. 31 2013.