Ex-WellCare General Counsel Gets Six Months in U.S. Prison

A former general counsel of insurer WellCare Health Plans Inc. has been sentenced to six months in prison for making a false statement to Florida’s Medicaid program as part of what prosecutors called a $35 million healthcare fraud scheme, Reuters reports.

A U.S. district judge in Tampa sentenced Thaddeus Bereday, who was indicted in 2011 along with four other former WellCare executive. The former GC pleaded guilty to a false statement charge in June, according to court records.

Reuters reporter Nate Raymond writes that Bereday, 52, was also sentenced to three years of supervised release during which he must spend one year in home confinement, prosecutors said. He was also ordered to pay a $50,000 fine.

Read the Reuters article.