Fraudster sentenced for scam employing prepaid cards

On Jan. 14, 2013, a former Hewlett-Packard employee pled guilty in a Georgia courtroom to charges that she illegally accessed the accounts of Medicaid providers and changed bank routing numbers to have funds deposited to prepaid cards. In DeKalb County Superior Court, Romona Ferrell-Davis was sentenced to 20 years, with three of those years to be served in prison, and to pay over $17,000 in restitution, according to the Georgia attorney general's office.

It was reported that Ferrell-Davis was employed by HP, which manages payments for the Georgia Department of Community Health. On two separate days in October 2011, Ferrell-Davis reportedly entered the Georgia Medicaid Management Information System (GAMMIS) at HP and changed the bank routing numbers and account numbers of four Medicaid providers to the account numbers of three prepaid cards, two of which were in her name.

The attorney general's office said Ferrell-Davis applied for the third card using the personal information of a Medicaid member she had accessed via GAMMIS. Through this scheme, Ferrell-Davis reportedly misappropriated approximately $8,828,972.75 in Medicaid payments; the attorney general's office said the Department of Community Health worked with unnamed prepaid card companies to recover all but $17,533.52 of that total, which Ferrell-Davis is expected to pay back.

Ferrell-Davis was convicted of four counts of computer theft, one count of computer invasion of privacy and one count of identity fraud.

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