United States v. Orlee Lumiguid

MEMORANDUM

In these direct criminal appeals, Co-Defendants Oriee Lumiguid and Ma Socorro Narciso appeal their convictions stemming from a scheme to defraud Medi-Cal, the federally- and state-funded program providing medical care to the indigent, elderly, and disabled in California. Lumi-guid also challenges his sentence. Having jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and 18 U.S.C. § 3742 (a), we affirm Defendants’ convictions and Lumiguid’s sentence.

I. Background

The scheme to defraud Medi-Cal involved several related companies, including MedCare Plus Home Health Providers (“MedCare”), which contracted with MediCal to provide its recipients with medical services, and Excel Plus Home Health Service (“Excel”), which provided caregivers for MedCare. The individuals running these companies would hire unlicensed caregivers to provide in-home licensed nursing services to Medi-Cal recipients, pay the unlicensed caregivers between $12 and $15 an hour, and then obtain reimbursement from Medi-Cal at the $29-an-hour rate for licensed nursing services. Those operating MedCare and Excel carried out this scheme by instructing their unlicensed caregivers to complete the paperwork documenting the…