Press Releases
06/29/2023
West Hartford Woman Charged with Medicaid Fraud
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Rocky Hill, CT) – A West Hartford woman has been arrested and charged with submitting false claims to the Connecticut Medicaid Health Insurance Program.
Lorena Soto-Bunker, age 48, of Seneca Road, West Hartford, was arrested on June 28, 2023 by Inspectors from the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit in the Office of the Chief State’s Attorney, and charged with one count of Health Insurance Fraud.
According to the arrest warrant affidavit, between September 2018 and September 2019, Soto-Bunker was not a licensed behavioral health therapist, however, she worked for Collaborative Counseling Center, LLC, a company that was owned and operated by Alicia Thompkins. Soto-Bunker was reporting that she was performing counseling services to her employer, Alicia Thompkins. Thompkins was submitting the billings to Medicaid as if she herself performed licensed qualified sessions. Evidence acquired through investigation showed Soto-Bunker was not meeting with clients as she reported, but was submitting claims to Thompkins. She caused those false claims to be billed and paid by the Connecticut Medical Assistance Program in the amount of $19,785.75. Alicia Thompkins has since pleaded guilty to Health Insurance Fraud for her role in submitting the unlicensed, unsupervised, unqualified services purportedly performed, and has paid the restitution.
Soto-Bunker caused the submission of claims to the Department of Social Services which contained false, incomplete, deceptive or misleading information which constitutes the crime of Health Insurance Fraud.
Soto-Bunker was released on a $25,000 non-surety bond, and is scheduled to appear in Hartford Superior Court, G.A. No. 14, on July 6, 2023. The charges are merely accusations and she is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
The amount of the submissions, $19,785.75, constitutes Health Insurance Fraud as a class B felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
The case will be prosecuted by the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit. The Unit is grateful for the assistance it received in the investigation from the State Department of Social Services Office of Quality Assurance, and the New Britain Police Department.
The Connecticut Medicaid Fraud Control Unit receives 75 percent of its funding from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under a grant award totaling $2,499,564.00 for federal fiscal year October 1, 2022 through September 30, 2023. The remaining 25 percent, totaling $833,186.00 for fiscal year October 1, 2022 through September 30, 2023 is funded by the State of Connecticut.
Anyone with knowledge of suspected fraud or abuse in the public healthcare system is asked to contact the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit at the Office of the Chief State’s Attorney’s at 860-258-5986.