Virginia's attorney general and Richmond city authorities are investigating a video showing a government worker advising a man posing as a wealthy Russian drug dealer not to note his criminal activities on a Medicaid application.
The undercover video, shot July 1, appeared Thursday on conservative activist James O'Keefe's Project Veritas website. Earlier this week, the group posted similar undercover videos made at Medicaid offices in Ohio, New York and South Carolina.
The most recent covert video shows a social-services worker in Richmond's Medicaid office counseling a man speaking in a Russian accent to omit what he had told her about his fictional drug-trafficking and prostitution activities.
"No, you just leave that off your application," she says, laughing nervously. "Don't put that on there."
"And would I just put, like self-employed," the impostor asks.
"Yes," she responds.
The man, using a Russian-sounding alias, had told the worker he drives a car worth more than $800,000 with a gold-plated engine, owns a yacht and has a helipad. He tells the employee he is seeking Medicaid enrollment for his father and that his family's enterprises are "off the books."
Neither the video nor the Project Veritas website says whether the employee reported the incident to her supervisors or to law enforcement. There was no response to a telephone message left Thursday afternoon for Richmond Social Services Director Doris Moseley.
Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli watched the video, found it "troubling" and ordered his Medicaid fraud unit to investigate, said Brian Gottstein, Cuccinelli's press secretary.
Gov. Bob McDonnell asked the state police to review it, administration spokesman J. Tucker Martin said.
Michael Wallace, a spokesman for Richmond Mayor Dwight C. Jones, said the city is "investigating this matter to determine the validity of the tape and the information. We will handle this matter as needed through the established disciplinary channels."
1 comment:
if someone with that shady of a background came in I would have told them anything they wanted to hear. After everything was filled out and he left he could have been denied benefits.
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