Former Veterans Affairs Employee Sentenced for Personally Receiving Payment for Fraudulent Reduction of Veteran’s Medical Bills
Employee Received $500 in Return for Deleting over $24,000 in Medical Bills

Washington, D.C. – Mary Gay, a former U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) employee, was sentenced on her prior guilty plea to a misdemeanor charge of illegal supplementation of salary for her receipt of $500 for her personal use for wrongfully deleting from VA computer files over $24,000 in medical bills for a veteran in 2006, U.S. Attorney Jeffrey A. Taylor, Joseph Persichini, Jr., Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, and James J. O’Neill, Assistant Inspector General for Investigations for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, announced today.

Gay, 53, of District Heights, Maryland, entered her guilty plea on Friday, June 27, 2008, before U.S. Magistrate Judge John M. Facciola in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Judge Facciola sentenced Gay today to three years of probation, 100 hours of community service and $1,000 fine.

According to the government’s evidence, Gay was employed as a VA patient representative at the VA’s Medical Center in Washington, D.C., working in the Medical Care Cost Recovery area. Gay’s primary responsibility was to handle walk-in patient billing inquiries.

On or about March 6, 2006, Gay told family members of a veteran that, in return for a cash payment of $500, she would write off bills that had accumulated for the veteran at the Medical Center. In order to demonstrate that Gay could, in fact do this, Gay wrote off $4,365 of the veteran’s medical bills that day.

On or about March 17, 2006, two members of the veteran’s family met with Gay in her office and gave her $500 in cash. Gay, in return, wrote off $20,153.60 of additional medical bills at the Medical Center for the veteran. Gay took the $500 and kept it for her own personal use. Gay subsequently retired from the VA.

In announcing today’s sentence, U.S. Attorney Taylor, FBI Assistant Director in Charge Persichini and VA Assistant Inspector General O’Neill praised the hard work of the investigative agents involved in this matter, especially FBI Special Agent Eric Hathaway and Special Agent Kim Lampkins of the Office of the Inspector General. They also acknowledged the efforts of former Legal Assistant Teesha Tobias and Legal Assistant Lisa Robinson, as well as former Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Barr, who initially handled this prosecution, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Butler, who handled it thereafter.

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