May 28, 10

NEWS / Westfield Clergyman Sentenced for Medicaid Fraud

TRENTON – Attorney General Paula T. Dow and Criminal Justice Director Stephen J. Taylor announced that a Union County minister was sentenced today for falsely completing, signing and submitting a Medicaid application on behalf of an elderly parishioner.

According to Acting Insurance Fraud Prosecutor Riza Dagli, Kevin Clark, 54, the pastor of Bethel Baptist Church in Westfield, was sentenced to 60 days of house arrest and 100 hours of community service as conditions of a term of three years of probation by Superior Court Judge Stuart Peim in Union County. He was also fined $5,000. The sentence was based on Clark’s guilty plea to Medicaid fraud and tampering with public records. The charges were contained in a Nov. 10 superseding Union County grand jury indictment.

In pleading guilty on Jan. 25, Clark admitted that on Nov. 17, 2004, he knowingly and falsely completed, signed and submitted a Medicaid application on behalf of an elderly parishioner. The Medicaid application required Clark to list the sale of all real property by the parishioner and any cash given away by the parishioner within the past three years. Clark admitted that he failed to list on the Medicaid application that the parishioner had sold a parcel of real property for $183,038. He further admitted that cash from the sale of the real property was given to him.

Sergeant Patricia Yellen and Deputy Attorney General Yvette Gibbons were assigned to the investigation. Gibbons represented the Office of the Insurance Fraud Prosecutor at the sentencing.

http://www.nj.gov/oag/newsreleases10/pr20100528c.html

Tags: public records, public record,