Ashley Nicole Cross, 42, a behavioral health services provider from Charlotte, North Carolina, has been sentenced to 135 months in prison for a series of criminal activities, including Medicaid fraud, COVID-19 relief fraud, and money laundering. The U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina announced the sentence on Friday.
Cross, the owner of Odyssey Health Group (OHG), was convicted of multiple charges, including healthcare fraud, making false statements related to healthcare, promotional money laundering, wire fraud, and conspiracy.
Between 2016 and 2021, Cross and her company submitted fraudulent claims totaling $1.3 million to South Carolina Medicaid for outpatient behavioral health services that were never provided. Cross facilitated the fraud by using personal identifying information (PII) from Medicaid beneficiaries—some of which she purchased. She also instructed her employees to create fake clinical service records to back up the fraudulent claims.
When an audit into OHG’s claims began in 2019, Cross submitted fabricated patient records and made false statements to auditors. In addition to the Medicaid fraud, Cross laundered the proceeds from the scheme to purchase more Medicaid beneficiary information.
From April 2020 to May 2022, Cross furthered her criminal activities by fraudulently obtaining more than $287,000 in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans intended to help businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic. She provided false payroll and employee information for both OHG and Gucci International Inc., an event planning business owned by her boyfriend, who was under federal indictment at the time.
As part of her sentence, Cross was ordered to serve three years of supervised release following her prison term. She was also instructed to pay $481,436.08 in restitution to the victims of her fraudulent actions.