By Hank Russell
A Nassau County resident has been sentenced to six months in jail for his role in a $4.4 million Medicaid fraud scheme in which he falsified travel reports and submitted them to the government program for reimbursement, then used that money in a kickback scheme involving Medicaid recipients.
John Gouzos was one of five people who was part of this operation which defrauded Medicaid out of millions of dollars. From December 2021 to March 2023, Gouzos, the owner and president of Medi Cab Corp., along with his manager — Richard Sehl of Saratoga County — paid illegal kickbacks to Medicaid patients to request rides from locations much farther away from where they were actually transported, allowing them to charge more per ride. In total, they overcharged Medicaid by over $650,000.
According to the attorney general’s office, Medicaid reimburses authorized businesses for transporting Medicaid patients to and from covered medical services. New York state law strictly prohibits all medical providers, including transportation companies, from paying or offering to pay cash kickbacks to anyone in return for the referral of medical services ultimately paid for by Medicaid.
In addition, they engaged in money laundering using shell companies they operated. These money laundering schemes allowed them to obtain their fraudulent Medicaid payments in cash and distribute kickbacks to Medicaid recipients they had recruited.
On June 27, 2024, the attorney general’s office announced that Gouzos — along with Sehl and Medi Cab — was charged with second-degree grand larceny, two counts of fourth-degree money laundering and felony counts of offering a false instrument for filing and falsifying business records.
On November 26, 2024, Gouzos, 44, and his company pleaded guilty in Rensselaer County Court to health care fraud. He has so far paid back $200,000 in restitution to Medicaid.
Gouzos is scheduled to be sentenced on January 27, 2025 to six months in jail concurrent with five years of probation.
“Exploiting vulnerable New York patients to steal millions of taxpayer dollars is illegal and reprehensible,” said Attorney General Letitia James. “Funds that should have been used to provide health care and services to New Yorkers in need were instead diverted because of fraudulent schemes. Not only did these individuals steal from Medicaid, they undermined the businesses of honest transportation providers, putting crucial patient services at risk. My office will continue to root out fraud and abuse in our health care system.”