LUBBOCK, Texas — A 60-year-old Lubbock woman has been sentenced to 17 years in federal prison for fraudulently obtaining, forging, and cashing Texas Medicaid checks intended for her quadriplegic son’s care, according to the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Texas.
Judy Terecia Sanchez was sentenced to 204 months’ imprisonment on February 19, 2026, by United States District Judge James Wesley Hendrix, after pleading guilty to one count of bank fraud in July of the previous year. Judge Hendrix also ordered Sanchez to pay $227,377 in restitution to Texas Health and Human Services.
“The defendant inflicted unimaginable suffering on her son by fraudulently pretending he received the care he needed and deserved,” stated U.S. Attorney Ryan Raybould. “Justice in the form of this lengthy prison sentence is deserved for the defendant’s callous exploitation of her son’s tragic condition for her own gain.”
The Texas Health and Human Services Inspector General, Raymond Winter, whose agency initiated the investigation, expressed gratitude to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the FBI, and the Texas Office of Attorney General Medicaid Fraud Control Unit for their efforts. “This case was about something much more troubling than fraud; it was about a severely disabled young man who was deprived of services paid for by taxpayers,” Winter said. “Ms. Sanchez received more than $200,000 under false pretenses—monies intended to provide professional help for her own quadriplegic son to perform basic functions that most of us take for granted. Instead, her son went without for more than six years while she stole taxpayer dollars and lied about it.”
Court records indicate that Sanchez’s son, who suffered a debilitating injury, was left severely disabled, bed-ridden, blind, non-verbal, non-mobile, and reliant on a tracheostomy for breathing. These conditions qualified him for home health care through the Texas Medicaid program. In 2015, Sanchez hired a certified nurse aide to assist with her son’s care, but the aide resigned after two weeks. Instead of hiring a replacement, Sanchez falsified timesheets to continue receiving Medicaid payments, directing checks to a post office box she controlled, and then forged and cashed them.
The fraud was uncovered when Sanchez’s son was found in an extreme state of neglect and misery, according to information presented at sentencing. An EMS worker testified that, in her nine-year career, she had never seen a living person in such a state. Judge Hendrix noted that Sanchez’s actions prevented her son from receiving qualified Medicaid care, highlighting the severe neglect, including pus-filled bed sores and a maggot infestation.
The investigation was conducted by the Office of the Texas Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Dallas Field Office—Lubbock Resident Agency, and Texas Health and Human Services. Assistant U.S. Attorney Ann Howey prosecuted the case.