A Richland County attorney who served on Blythewood Town Council has been linked to an alleged $28 million health care embezzlement scheme that bilked more than 17,000 customers before authorities shut it down.The scheme, in which attorney Kathleen Devereaux Cauthen faces federal felony charges, also involved shell corporations – some set up to allegedly launder money – in various states, including South Carolina, as well as in the Bahamas and possibly Pakistan, according to documents filed in federal court in Nashville, Tenn.
Efforts to reach Cauthen, who was suspended from the practice of law by the S.C. Supreme Court late last month, were unsuccessful Monday. She could face eight years in prison if convicted.
The court order suspending her gave no specific reason. It also ordered a receiver, Peyre Lumpkin, to take custody of her legal files and trust accounts. According to court documents, the scheme that Cauthen aided involved setting up corporations that purported to offer legitimate health care coverage to more than 17,000 people and employer groups and the collection of more than $28 million in insurance premium payments. The people who paid premiums were in Arkansas, Indiana, Tennessee and other states, according to legal documents.
When people submitted claims for their coverage, those claims were “unjustly denied or turned down,” according to a separate filing in the case, an indictment in which she is named as an unindicted co-conspirator.
Some of those premiums people paid for health care coverage went into a bank account controlled by Cauthen and a co-conspirator, William Worthy II, at the First Citizens Bank & Trust Co in Blythewood, according to Cauthen’s information and Worthy’s indictment.
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Suspended SC Attorney Linked to Massive Health Insurance Scam
The criminal codes should be enhanced, especially in the case of a licensed professional engaged in wrongdoing.
ReplyDeleteWhat a scam and I'm glad she was caught!
ReplyDelete