Social Service Agency Co-Founders Sentenced for Deadly Fraud Scheme

June 11, 2010 - PHILADELPHIA—Two co-founders of MultiEthnic Behavioral Health Services, Inc. (“MEBH”), Mickal Kamuvaka and Solomon Manamela, were sentenced today for their roles in a fraud scheme connected to the death of 14-year-old Danieal Kelly. U.S. District Court Judge Stewart Dalzell sentenced Kamuvaka, 61, of Philadelphia, to 210 months in prison and sentenced Manamela, 52, also of Philadelphia, to 168 months. The two were convicted at trial in March along with MEBH workers Julius Juma Murray, and Mariam Coulibaly, who will both be sentenced tomorrow. From 2000 to 2006, the defendants committed fraud on the federal government and on the City of Philadelphia by knowingly filing false reports claiming to provide social services to at-risk children and their families, when few or no services were ever provided, and then billing the City for those services. Danieal Kelly’s family was among those that was supposed to receive services.

In addition to the prison terms, Judge Dalzell ordered the defendants to pay restitution, joint and several, in the amount of $1.216 million to the federal Crime Victims Fund, which supports thousands of programs for crime victims. He also ordered both defendants taken into custody immediately.

A total of nine defendants were charged in connection with the fraud scheme; five pleaded guilty before the case went to trial. The four remaining defendants—Kamuvaka, Manamela, Coulibaly, and Murray—were convicted of 12 counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to obstruct a federal investigation. Kamuvaka and Manamela were each convicted of six additional counts of health care fraud. The city had paid MEBH over $3.6 million over the span of the contract. Approximately 95% of those funds were provided by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’s Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (“TANF”) program. The defendants fabricated bogus records to give the appearance that MEBH had made required visits and provided the required services to the family of Danieal Kelly, who was found dead in her home on August 4, 2006. At the time of her death, she weighed only 42 pounds and had bedsores to the bone.

The case was investigated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Philadelphia Police, and the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office. It is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Bea Witzleben and Vineet Gauri.