Source: Office of United States Attorneys
Marc H. Silverman, Acting United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, Anish Shukla, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the New Haven Division of the FBI, and Harry T. Chavis, Jr., Special Agent in Charge of IRS Criminal Investigation in New England, announced that HELEN ZERVAS, 57, of Farmington, waived her right to be indicted and pleaded guilty today before U.S. District Judge Sarah F. Russell in Bridgeport to health care fraud and public corruption offenses.
According to court documents and statements made in court, Zervas, an optometrist, owned and operated Family Eye Care, located in Bristol, and was a participating provider in Medicaid and Medicare. Between approximately October 2015 and January 2020, Zervas repeatedly submitted claims to Medicaid and Medicare falsely representing that she had provided, or determined it was medically necessary to provide, certain treatment. For example, between approximately September 2016 and January 2020, Zervas made more than 300 false claims to Medicaid and more than 30 false claims to Medicare for insertion of an amniotic membrane to the eye surface of a patient when that treatment was either not provided or was not medically necessary.
In 2020, while the State of Connecticut was auditing Zervas’s and Family Eye Care’s Medicaid billings, Zervas conspired with both a senior official in the State’s Office of Policy and Management and a Connecticut State Representative to interfere with the audit. In exchange for payments from Family Eye Care, Zervas, and the state representative, the senior official agreed to advise and pressure other state employees to take official action concerning the pending Medicaid audit of Zervas and Family Eye Care.
Zervas pleaded guilty to one count of health care fraud, an offense that carries a maximum term of imprisonment of 10 years, and one count of conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right, an offense that carries a maximum term of imprisonment of 20 years.
Zervas is released pending sentencing, which is not yet scheduled.
This ongoing investigation is being conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Internal Revenue Service – Criminal Investigation Division. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jonathan N. Francis and David E. Novick.