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May 20, 2014 at 09:53 AM
(Bloomberg) — Todd Farha, the former chief executive officer of WellCare Health Plans Inc. (NYSE:WCG)<span >, was sentenced to three years in prison in connection with a government health program fraud case.
Farha was sentenced Tuesday in federal court in Tampa, Fla. At a trial held in 2013, federal prosecutors accused WellCare of falsely inflating behavioral health expenses for state Medicaid recipients. That move helped WellCare keep unused premiums rather than refunding the premiums to the agency administering the program, prosecutors said.
Farha faced a maximum of 10 years in prison for health-care fraud. U.S. District Judge James Moody, who sentenced Farha, “recognized the complex circumstances of this case and the true character of the people involved,” defense attorney Barry Boss said in an e-mailed statement.
The U.S. Department of Justice has stepped up its effort to hold the managers of programs that cheat the federal government accountable, Lanny Breuer, then chief of the criminal division, said in a 2012 speech.
