The following is a release from the Washington State Attorney General’s Office:
Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced on June 5 that the King County Superior Court convicted Elene Allonce of forging a nursing license that she used to fraudulently serve as a Medicaid healthcare provider. Allonce was sentenced to six months in jail, the most time allowed for this 16-year-old crime.
After the Washington State Attorney General’s Office (AGO) charged Allonce with forging a nursing license in 1999, she failed to appear for arraignment and a warrant was issued. The defendant then disappeared for 16 years. She was recently returned to Washington state custody on the warrant after being convicted in federal court in New York for stealing patient records and submitting $10 million in false billings to Medicare — a separate scheme, using a different name. Allonce’s six-month sentence from Washington will run concurrently with the 12-year federal prison sentence she is currently serving.
“It is deplorable that fraudsters take advantage of the elderly and the most vulnerable among us for financial gain,” Ferguson said. “My office will hold those accountable who attempt to defraud taxpayers and evade justice.”
While taking classes at Bastyr University in Kenmore, Allonce asked another student, who was a registered nurse, for a letter of recommendation. Allonce stated her future employer required the person writing the recommendation to include a copy of his or her nursing license. The defendant used this registered nurse’s number and fabricated another license, inserting her name instead.
Allonce then used the fraudulent license to apply for and obtain a registered nurse position at a Seattle Medicaid funded nursing facility. From May 1998 to June 1998 the defendant posed as a nurse, signing numerous medical documents and administering medications to patients.
The conviction announced today follows an investigation by the AGO’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit prompted by a Department of Health referral. Assistant Attorney General Yarden Weidenfeld prosecuted the case.
State and federal Medicaid authorities, including the Washington Department of Health and the Office of the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, assisted significantly in the fraud enforcement of this matter.
