A 47-year-old woman was sentenced Thursday to nearly five years in prison and ordered to make full restitution for orchestrating a long-running fraud scheme that cost the state's Medicaid program more than $850,000.
Nearly 5-year prison term for woman whose fraud scheme cost Minnesota's Medicaid program more than $850K
She was the ringleader of a Twin Cities swindling operation from January 2015 to March 2020.
April 21, 2022 at 8:39PM
Trenea D. Davis was sentenced in Hennepin County District Court after pleading guilty to five counts of theft by swindle filed by the state Attorney General's Office, which exposed her as the ringleader of a swindling operation from January 2015 to March 2020.
At the time, Davis was charged with 11 counts of aiding and abetting theft by swindle; investigators said she admitted to authorities that she recruited friends and relatives to feign or exaggerate medical conditions to qualify them for personal care assistant (PCA) services.
She then enlisted others to report providing services that never occurred and coordinated check-splitting arrangements among PCAs, recipients and herself, according to the charges.
Davis is expected to serve slightly more than three years of her 4 ¾-year term in prison and the balance on supervised release. Judge Regina Chu also ordered Davis to make restitution of roughly $852,000.
The plea agreement reached in January bars Davis, who lived in Brooklyn Center at the time of the scheme, from ever working in positions connected to Medicaid or Medicare.
Davis reported that she worked as a PCA for more than 7,000 hours from December 2014 to May 2018, then switched to the role of patient, reporting to need up to 12 hours of care a day, according to the charges.
Guilty pleas were secured earlier and sentences handed out to most of Davis' subordinates: Davis' husband, Cedric Zeno; Davis' niece Virleka D. Parker; Frances A. Finklea, a friend of Davis'; Brianna R. Foss; Bobby L. Mayweather; and Elbridge C. Johnson.
Davis' brother-in-law, Marc Anthony Zeno, 56, of Gramercy, La., has been a fugitive throughout his case, according to court records. A warrant has been issued for his arrest.
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