Former Employee of Nursing Home Company Operating in North Carolina and Virginia Sentenced to Serve 63 Months in Prison for Kickback Schemes and Tax Evasion

WASHINGTON—The former director of corporate maintenance and renovations at Medical Facilities of America Inc. (MFA) was today sentenced to serve 63 months in prison for accepting kickbacks from contractors and evading federal income taxes, the Department of Justice announced. MFA operates health care and nursing home facilities throughout Virginia and North Carolina.

John D. Henderson, of Colonial Heights, Virginia, was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Roanoke, Virginia, by Judge Samuel G. Wilson. In addition to his prison sentence, Henderson was ordered to pay a total of $698,088 in restitution and additional taxes, penalties, and interest to the Internal Revenue Service for his participation in two separate conspiracies. The conspiracies involved steering contracts for the repair, maintenance, and renovation at MFA health care and nursing home facilities. One of the conspiracies took place from about June 1998 until at least December 2006, and the other conspiracy took place from about July 2005 until at least December 2006. Henderson pleaded guilty on March 14, 2012, to two counts of conspiracy to commit mail and honest services fraud for the kickback schemes and to two counts for failing to include the kickbacks and other income he received on his federal income tax returns for years 2005 and 2006.

According to the four-count felony charge, Henderson oversaw the bidding process for repair, maintenance, and renovation contracts at MFA facilities. To facilitate the conspiracies, Henderson steered contracts to several venders in return for kickbacks; created fictitious competitor bids that were higher than the quotes submitted by the venders who paid him, in order to create the appearance of competition; and directed subordinates to solicit quotes only from vendors who paid him. Henderson received more than $560,000 in kickbacks and had at least $101,000 more paid to a co-conspirator, and in return steered MFA contracts totaling more than $5 million.

“Through this kickback scheme, Henderson and his co-conspirators deprived MFA of competitive pricing to its financial detriment,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Joseph Wayland in charge of the Antitrust Division. “Today’s sentencing demonstrates the division’s commitment to holding executives accountable for disrupting the competitive bidding process for service contracts.”

Henderson is the fifth individual to plead guilty in the department’s fraud investigation into the award of repair, maintenance, and renovation contracts at facilities owned by MFA. On October 18, 2011, both Donald R. Holland and Larry R. Sumpter pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Roanoke to participating in the scheme. On January 31, 2012, Holland and Sumpter were each sentenced by Judge Samuel G. Wilson to serve two years of probation and were fined $50,000 and $15,000, respectively. On April 4, 2011, Edward T. Fodrey pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Norfolk, Virginia, and was sentenced by Judge Mark S. Davis on January 31, 2012, to serve 37 months in prison and was ordered to pay $326,799 in restitution. Gary L. Johns pleaded guilty on December 12, 2011, in U.S. District Court in Roanoke and was sentenced by Judge Wilson on March 14, 2012, to serve three years of probation and to pay $169,341 in restitution.

The investigation is being conducted by the Antitrust Division’s Philadelphia Field Office, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Virginia, the FBI in Roanoke, and the Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation in Roanoke. Anyone with information concerning fraudulent behavior relating to the award of contracts by MFA should contact the Antitrust Division’s Philadelphia Field Office at 215-597-7405 or visit www.justice.gov/atr/contact/newcase.htm.