Former Fayette man sentenced
PITTSBURGH – A former Fayette County man was sentenced in federal court Wednesday on convictions of mail fraud and willful failure to file a tax return, according to U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan. According to a report from Buchanan, Mark Shipley, 42, of 30 Rocky Top Lane, Morgantown, W.Va., was the owner of Medical Ambulance Service, located in Perryopolis and Carmichaels, when he submitted medical claims to and was paid by Medicare and Medicaid for ambulance transportation services that were medically unnecessary and not compensable.
Shipley was not entitled to receive payments from Medicare or Medicaid due to a prior Medicaid fraud conviction on Dec. 27, 1988, the report said. That conviction resulted in both programs excluding Shipley from billing them. In order to get around this exclusion, Shipley used straw parties to pretend they owned his ambulance companies, the report said.
In connection with the guilty plea to willful failure to file a tax return, Shipley failed to pay taxes on money he illegally collected from Medicare and Medicaid in 1998 by not filing a return that year, Buchanan’s report stated.
Shipley was sentenced to 15 months’ incarceration and was ordered to pay $30,000 in restitution.