Former Va. Rescue Squad President Gets Prison for Fraud
March 21--ABINGDON, Va. -- The thought of probation and house arrest as punishment for raking in nearly $1 million in fraudulent health-care payments didn't seem to sit well with U.S. District Judge James P. Jones.
To send a bolder message, Jones on Wednesday sentenced former Saltville Rescue Squad president Eddie Wayne Louthian, 61, to four years in prison and ordered him to pay $907,000 in restitution.
"The system relies on [health-care] providers telling the truth and following the rules and I'm convinced Mr. Louthian did neither," Jones said.
Last year, a jury declared Louthian guilty of listing three able-bodied patients as stretcher-bound and then billing insurers for years of ambulance rides to dialysis and back.
He faced as much as 45 years in prison after the resulting conviction on seven counts of health-care fraud and perjury before a grand jury.
In the same trial, jurors declared the rescue squad as a corporation not guilty of any crime.
An accomplice, former squad member Monica Jane Hicks, pleaded guilty in June to a single count of conspiracy to commit health-care fraud and later testified against Louthian. She is serving two years of probation and must pay $50 a month to clear a restitution debt of $757,258.
Jones wasn't swayed Wednesday by the defense attorney's portrayal of Louthian as someone who had only the patients' best interests at heart.
"Mr. Louthian provided a service to the community ... and those patients wanted to be transported by ambulance," defense attorney Michael Khouri argued. "Sending Mr. Louthian to jail is not going to right any perceived wrong."
Assistant U.S. Attorney Janine Myatt sought a prison term when arguing that the rescue squad's former leader directly benefitted from the scheme in the form of a salary that nearly doubled in the span of a few years.
"He's working at a nonprofit organization ... making $50,000 a year at a time when most people in America are losing their jobs and taking a cut in pay," she said.
Jones, moments before doling out prison time, noted that his restitution order might leave Louthian penniless. But a life of court payments without incarceration amounted to a slap on the wrist.
"Without severe sanctions, health care fraud would be encouraged rather than discouraged," the judge said.
Despite the restitution orders, Jones has yet to decide how the bill will be paid.
A previous court order quashed any ideas prosecutors had for impounding some of the rescue squad's ambulances and equipment as payment.
Since then, Louthian's property and bank account have been targeted by the prosecution's forfeiture order.
But Khouri on Wednesday pointed to the rescue squad as the main beneficiary of the fraud.
"The best way for the government to get its money back is to bring the rescue squad and the insurance company back into court," he said.
A date for the forfeiture hearing has not been set.
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