FRESNO, Calif. (FOX26) \u2014 The CEO of a Fresno-area home health care company is facing federal charges after investigators say he stole millions of dollars meant to care for American veterans.<\/p>\n
According to the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office, 66-year-old Cashmir Chinedu Luke was arrested at San Francisco International Airport while trying to board a flight to Nigeria.<\/p>\n
Federal prosecutors say Luke ran Four Corners Health LLC, a company that provided in-home, non-medical care for elderly veterans through the Veterans Community Care Program. <\/p>\n
The company served veterans in Fresno, Tulare, Merced, Mariposa, Madera, San Francisco and Contra Costa counties.<\/p>\n
Investigators say that between December 2019 and July 2024, Luke carried out a massive fraud scheme, billing the Department of Veterans Affairs for services that were never provided.<\/p>\n
Court documents allege he submitted around 10,000 false claims, including:<\/p>\n
Billing for hours caretakers never workedBilling for days caretakers weren\u2019t presentBilling duplicate claims for care already providedBilling for care supposedly given to veterans weeks after they had already died<\/p>\n
Prosecutors say Luke continued the scheme even as the VA\u2019s third-party benefits administrator tried to claw back the payments. <\/p>\n
As the company\u2019s owner and sole billing representative, Luke allegedly funneled the money into a personal bank account and immediately spent it on luxury items or transferred it through a network of accounts in Asia and Africa.<\/p>\n
In total, the VA paid out $7 million tied to the false claims.<\/p>\n
The case is being investigated by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General. <\/p>\n
Assistant U.S. Attorney Calvin Lee is prosecuting.<\/p>\n
If convicted, Luke faces up to 10 years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FRESNO, Calif. (FOX26) \u2014 The CEO of a Fresno-area home health care company is facing federal charges after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":80708,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":["post-80707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80707\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}