{"id":378994,"date":"2026-10-21T23:20:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-21T23:20:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/378994\/"},"modified":"2026-10-21T23:20:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-21T23:20:11","slug":"nyc-adult-daycare-owners-busted-in-530k-medicaid-fraud-da","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/378994\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC adult daycare owners busted in $530K Medicaid fraud: DA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two Staten Island adult daycare operators allegedly bilked Medicaid<\/a> out of more than half a million dollars by billing for hundreds of seniors they never served \u2014 including some who were dead or out of the country, prosecutors said Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Yangsim Oum, 79, and her daughter, 49-year-old Juyone Choe \u2014 the respective owner and program director of SI Day Care Center, Inc. on Forest Avenue \u2014 were arrested Tuesday in an investigation dubbed \u201cOperation Golden Grift\u201d by the Staten Island District Attorney\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n

The pair were slapped with a staggering 457-count indictment charging them with pocketing more than $530,000 in bogus billings in just four months from April 17 to August 25.<\/p>\n

That eye-watering sum included $13,000 for services supposedly provided to at least 32 seniors who turned out to be dead or overseas at the time, according to prosecutors.<\/p>\n

The SI Adult Daycare Center on Forest Ave., where Oum and Choe were allegedly scamming Medicaid for months. James Messerschmidt for NY Post<\/p>\n

The mother-daughter duo was \u201cone of Staten Island\u2019s most lucrative con artists,\u201d District Attorney Michael McMahon railed at a press conference announcing the indictment.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll these defendants saw were dollar signs,\u201d he fumed, accusing Oum and Choe of \u201cusing and abusing our borough\u2019s seniors as pawns in a vast criminal enterprise.\u201d <\/p>\n

Oum and Choe each face up to 15 years behind bars if convicted of the top count, healthcare fraud in the second degree. They also face hundreds of counts of falsifying business records in the first degree.<\/p>\n

McMahon warned there were \u201ccountless\u201d other criminals running similar alleged scams.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is just the tip of the iceberg,\u201d he said. \u201cAs far as we can tell, countless other adult daycare centers are engaged in similar criminal activities.\u201d<\/p>\n

They were just two of the about 100 senior care providers across the city targeted in a sprawling operation<\/a> Tuesday involving both state, local and federal authorities investigating potential Medicaid fraud.<\/p>\n

Yangsim Oum, the owner of SI Adult Daycare accused of defrauding Medicaid out of more than $500,000. James Messerschmidt for NY Post<\/p>\n

\u201cThe New York State Department of Health and the Office of the Medicaid Inspector General joined state and federal law enforcement agencies in a coordinated crackdown on suspected fraud in the social adult daycare program,\u201d State Health Commissioner Dr. James McDonald said alongside McMahon.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe investigation targets providers suspected of illegal activities, including money laundering, kickbacks, improper billing and fraudulent activities,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese efforts have resulted in more than 100 referrals to the attorney general for investigation and prosecution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Agents from Homeland Security Investigations and agencies were seen flooding adult daycare centers in Brooklyn and filling cars with armloads of sealed boxes marked \u201cevidence,\u201d while Dr. Mehmet Oz<\/a>, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator, visited two facilities in Queens.<\/p>\n

The raids followed a months-long investigation, which Gov. Kathy Hochul said Tuesday was part of a \u201cmassive effort to combat fraud and abuse\u201d on the part of the state and the feds.<\/p>\n

Adult daycare centers typically serve seniors who need help because of physical or cognitive decline, and keep the elders fed, safe and occupied during the day if family is unavailable to care for them.<\/p>\n

Juyoung Choe, program director at SI Adult Daycare Center, was also charged in the months-long alleged scam. James Messerschmidt for NY Post<\/p>\n

Many of the raided locations \u2014 including the one on Staten Island \u2014 were legitimately serving customers, and prosecutors noted those seniors were in the process of being connected with responsible businesses.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do not want to have more innocent victims of this deception and fraud,\u201d McMahon said. \u201cNo members of our community will be displaced or left without critical services they need as a result of yesterday\u2019s takedown.\u201d<\/p>\n

Similar fraud schemes have taken center stage in Washington and the headlines in recent years \u2014 with attention exploding in 2025 after a Minnesota daycare run by Somali immigrants, infamously called the \u201cQuality Learing Center,\u201d was caught conning the government out of millions in compensation for kids it never cared for.<\/p>\n

The Quality Learing Center was largely exposed by an investigative vlogger, and President Trump ramped up his war on fraud schemes Tuesday by offering $30,000 bounties<\/a> for similar tips leading to indictments.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Additional reporting by Vaughn Golden<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two Staten Island adult daycare operators allegedly bilked Medicaid out of more than half a million dollars by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":378995,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[28890,396,7050,57,9,24,63,2956,134,136,135,58],"class_list":["post-378994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-daycare","tag-fraud","tag-medicaid","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-senior-citizens","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378994\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/378995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}