Why Did Trump Grant Clemency To A Person Who Defrauded Medicare Out Of Hundreds Of Millions Of Dollars?!

Medicare is a lifeline for countless senior citizens across this country — including my mother. This federal program primarily provides health insurance coverage to people over 65 years old and ensures our senior citizens have medical services they need to thrive and in many cases, to simply survive. No wonder over 75 percent of Americans say Medicare is important to themselves and their family.

But on Tuesday, Donald Trump granted clemency to Judith Negron, a person who had been convicted of 24 felonies in connection with being the mastermind behind a massive scheme that defrauded Medicare out of over $200 million dollars. As the U.S. Department of Justice explained after Negron was convicted, she had “orchestrated” a complex Medicare fraud scheme that spanned from 2002 to 2010 that bilked Medicare out of hundreds of millions of dollars that was intended to provide medical care for our senior citizens.

The evidence against Negron, who was the owner of Miami-area mental health care company, tells a story of a level of criminality that is simply jaw-dropping.

As the DOJ detailed, Negron “masterminded and executed” a scheme that defrauded Medicare by billing the government program for mental health treatment of patients who they knew were not eligible for such care, or who had not even been treated. Negron had contrived a complex scheme where she “submitted false and fraudulent claims to Medicare” and “paid bribes and kickbacks to owners and operators of assisted living facilities” to send them patients who were not qualified for treatment or received no treatment whatsoever.

Negron’s trial revealed that she was directly involved in all aspects of this scheme. For example, she “caused the alteration of patient files and therapist notes for the purpose of making it falsely appear that patients being treated” qualified for Medicare benefits, and would even “would sign patient documents as a supervising therapist without having treated the patients” and then bill Medicare and receive money that was intended for the care of seniors.

One of the most brazen examples was that Negron billed Medicare for group psychotherapy sessions for a person “in a neuro-vegetative state, who would not lift her head or respond.”

After a six day trial in 2011,  Negron was “found guilty of” 24 felony counts, including “conspiracy to commit health care fraud, health care fraud, conspiracy to pay and receive illegal health care kickbacks, conspiracy to commit money laundering, money laundering and structuring to avoid reporting requirements.”

She was sentenced to 35 years in prison and ordered to pay restitution to Medicare of $87 million dollars.

That was justice for what federal  prosecutors dubbed “one of the biggest Medicare scams ever.” But Trump released her from prison this week, just eight years into her sentence—and with no indication she has paid restitution to Medicare so that our senior citizens had the funding they need for care.

So why did Trump release her? In a word: connections.

Negron’s case was brought to Trump’s attention by Alice Johnson, whose life sentence for a first-time drug offense was commuted by Trump, thanks in part to the efforts of Kim Kardashian. Johnson and Negron served prison time together, where they apparently became friends.

The official statement of the Trump White House on why Negron was being released early was that she had “always shown herself to be a model inmate who works extremely well with others and has established a good working relationship with staff and inmates.”

I’m not sure why the fact Negron didn’t cause problems while in prison means she should not have paid her debt to our nation for defrauding hundreds of millions of dollars that was intended to help our senior citizens.

True, there were more egregious cases of Trump granting pardons or clemency this week. For example, Trump granted clemency to Paul Pogue, who had been on probation for underpaying his taxes.  There’s no mystery here for this Trump action given that Pogue is Republican donor who contributed  $85,000 to the Trump Victory Fund and nearly $150,000 to the Republican National committee.

But Trump’s pardoning of a person who took defrauded Medicare out of money that our senior citizens had paid for with their earnings over their lifetimes deserves far more press coverage than it has received. Trump should be pressed on why he intervened in a case that was intended to send a message to others that if they commit Medicare fraud, they will receive a severe prison sentence.

And my hope is that the Democrats make this case part of the 2020 campaign discussion, especially in states with big senior citizen populations like Florida. Not only does Trump’s recently-unveiled budget call for reducing Medicare spending by $750 billion over ten years, he has now released from prison a person who defrauded our seniors out of the money they vitally need for essential medical care.  Both are painfully wrong for our nation’s senior citizens — including my mother.

Dean Obeidallah, a lawyer, hosts SiriusXM radio’s The Dean Obeidallah show and is a columnist for the Daily Beast and a CNN.com Opinion Contributor.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.