Press Releases
05/22/2019
Second Arrest in Scheme to Defraud Medicaid
A New Britain man was arrested today and charged with fraudulently billing Medicaid for care he claimed to have provided to a Rocky Hill man, including at a time when he was out of the country on vacation.WILLIAM COLON, age 42, of Mason Drive, New Britain, was arrested by Inspectors from the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit in the Office of the Chief State’s Attorney and charged with one count each of Larceny in the First Degree By Defrauding A Public Community, Conspiracy to Commit Larceny in the First Degree By Defrauding A Public Community and Health Insurance Fraud.
According to the arrest warrant affidavit, Colon submitted fraudulent billings claiming he had rendered in-home care for a disabled relative during periods of time when Colon was either actually employed elsewhere or on vacation outside the United States. Colon was paid about $21,950 for bogus claims between June 2014 and May 2016, the warrant states.
Colon was employed by the Personal Care Assistance (PCA) program, which is a federal and state funded Medicaid program that provides funds to allow disabled adults to hire assistants for daily care, thus enabling the individual to remain at home instead of being placed in a health care facility. The alleged scheme unraveled when another relative discovered that Colon’s social media posts revealed that he could not have been present to provide the care for which he was paid.
This is the second arrest resulting from an ongoing investigation. Colon’s wife, Clara Rivera Colon, was arrested last week on the same charges. Her case is pending in Hartford Superior Court.
William Colon was released on $50,000 non-surety bond and is scheduled to appear in Hartford Superior Court, G.A. No. 14, on May 28, 2019.The charges are merely accusations and both William and Clara Rivera Colon are presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty.
Larceny in the First Degree by Defrauding a Public Community and Conspiracy to Commit Larceny in the First Degree by Defrauding a Public Community are class B felonies punishable by up to 20 years in prison. Health Insurance Fraud is an unclassified felony punishable by up to 5 years in prison.
The cases are being prosecuted by the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit. The Unit is grateful for the assistance it received in these investigations from the state Department of Social Services Office of Quality Assurance and the New Britain Police Department.