BALTIMORE – Maryland Attorney General Anthony G. Brown today announced the sentencing of Vitalis Ohakwe Ojiegbe, 68, of Bowie, Maryland, who pleaded guilty to one count of Medicaid Fraud for writing prescriptions for controlled dangerous substances without a legitimate medical purpose in the Circuit Court for Prince George’s County in June. The Honorable Judge Carol Coderre sentenced Ojiegbe to a five-year suspended sentence with three years’ supervised probation. Ojiegbe was ordered to pay $16,035.11 in restitution and is also to be excluded from participating in any federally funded healthcare program.
Ojiegbe, a physician specializing in internal medicine, owned and operated Sunrise Medical Clinic, a medical practice located in the 9800 block of Greenbelt Road in Lanham, Maryland. The investigation began following a referral from the Maryland Department of Health’s Office of Controlled Substances Administration (OCSA). OCSA is the state agency responsible for enforcing the Controlled Dangerous Substances Act. Beginning in January 2013 and continuing through June 9, 2019, Ojiegbe charged his patients, many of whom were Medicaid recipients, $200.00 a month for monthly medical appointments, even though the patients could have seen a Medicaid provider free of charge. In exchange for these cash payments, Ojiegbe prescribed controlled dangerous substances, including oxycodone and alprazolam, without a legitimate medical purpose.
This case was prosecuted by the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit of the Attorney General’s Office in cooperation with the Drug Enforcement Administration. Attorney General Brown thanked Medicaid Fraud Control Unit Assistant Attorneys General Lisa Marts and Cathy Schuster Pascale, Fraud Analysist Todd Sheffer and Investigator Michael Glenn for their work on the case. Attorney General Brown also thanked Special Agent James Browning of the Drug Enforcement Administration.
“Judge Carol Coderre sentenced Ojiegbe to a five-year suspended sentence with three years’ supervised probation. ”
One would wonder how much crime those ill-gotten drugs caused.
A thief and drug pusher, pay your fine and move on.
This is not a strong enough sentence for someone who has caused considerable damage with addictive drugs, made money while doing it, and betrayed the trust of the medical profession. How is he different from a drug dealer?
I agree.
Over that many years, thousands of lives had to be destroyed by 1 man. It’s not just the patient who may have already been an addict or the ones this doctor turned into a opioid addicted by illegally prescribing narcotics. The extended families of the patient were also devastated by the actions of the addicted patient. So for this criminal to get this slap on the wrist is a travesty. The judge and doctor should be locked up and throw away the key.
A slap on the wrist! This “Thief, Fraudster, & Drug Dealer” got away with causing harm to many people under the guise of being a “Doctor”. He should have gone to jail, but they should have started with stripping him of his ability to practice medicine!