INDIVIDUAL ARRESTED FOR CRIMINAL CHARGES WITH HEALTH CARE FRAUD

R. Joe Clark, special agent in charge of the Knoxville division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), announced that Mailee Renae Lodge, also known as Mailee Renae Cook, age 34, of Jonesborough, Tennessee, was arrested today without incident after being charged in a 14 count criminal complaint with health care fraud, fraudulent use of a credit card, engaging in monetary transactions in criminally derived property, conducting financial transactions to promote unlawful activity, and obtaining controlled substances by fraud.

An affidavit filed in support of the criminal complaint alleges that Mailee Renae Lodge, along with her husband, Craig Robert Lodge, engaged in a scheme to defraud the Medicare program through their Johnson city business, accused examone, also known as accumed medical services corporation. After fraudulently obtaining a provider identification number in the name of a Johnson city physician, the lodges are alleged to have submitted over $2,000,000 in false claims and received over $1,000,000 in payments from Cigna Medicare, the Medicare part b contractor for Tennessee. The false claims represented that the physician had performed home examinations, sleep studies, pulmonary studies, and other procedures when no such procedures had been performed. The physician was not aware of nor had he authorized the submission of the claims in his name.

Lodge is also alleged to have used American Express credit cards obtained by her husband through the fraudulent use of the personal identifying information of two Johnson City physicians. The affidavit states that lodge personally caused approximately $33,000 in charges to be made to the account in a four-month period for the purchase of apparel, cosmetics, pet products, jewelry, hotel lodging, car rentals, airfare, and general merchandise. Lodge is also alleged to have made payments to the American Express account with funds from payments for the fraudulent Medicare claims, as well as having paid a California jewelry retailer $27,000 in funds from the Medicare fraud over a two month period in 2002.
The affidavit further alleges that lodge and her husband obtained prescription drugs, phentermine, and hydrocodone, after fraudulently obtaining a drug enforcement administration registration number in the name of a Johnson City physician in early 2001. The lodges are alleged to have used the number to obtain 6,800 hydrocodone tablets and 1,500 phentermine tablets between March 2001 and January 2003.

Lodge's husband, Craig Robert Lodge, pled guilty on April 28, 2003, in the United States District Court, eastern district of Tennessee, Greenville, Tennessee, to felony charges for health care fraud, wire fraud, credit card fraud, identity theft, money laundering, and obtaining drugs by fraud. Mr. Lodge has been in federal custody since his arrest on February 28, 2003. His sentencing is set for July 21, 2003.
Lodge will be taken before United States magistrate judge Dennis h. Inna this afternoon for her initial appearance.

The arrest was a result of an ongoing investigation by the FBI, the internal revenue service criminal investigation division, and the department of health and human services office of inspector general.
The public is reminded that a criminal complaint/indictment contains only allegations of criminal misconduct and that this subject is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.