A Brooklyn operator of adult day-care and home-care businesses has admitted taking part in a scheme that prosecutors say generated about $65 million in false Medicaid claims.
Ahsan Ijaz pleaded guilty on Friday to conspiracy to commit health-care fraud. The plea makes him the tenth defendant to admit guilt in the investigation, which concerns payments for social adult day-care and home-health services that the government says were never delivered.
Ijaz owned two Brooklyn centres—Happy Family Social Adult Day Care Center and Family Social Adult Day Care Center—and a fiscal intermediary called Responsible Care Staffing. According to the government’s account of the plea, the businesses paid cash kickbacks and bribes to Medicaid recipients to secure enrolments, then billed the state programme over roughly seven years. Some claims were submitted for periods when the listed recipients were outside the United States.
A guilty plea changes the procedural posture of the case but does not settle punishment. Ijaz is due to be sentenced on March 10, 2027. The conspiracy count carries a statutory maximum of ten years, although the eventual sentence will depend on the federal guidelines, the accepted loss calculation and the other factors the judge is required to weigh.
The case sits at the intersection of two recurring enforcement problems: services that are difficult to verify after the fact, and payment structures that allow recruitment incentives to be concealed as ordinary business expenses. Adult day-care programmes are designed to keep older and disabled people connected to community services. When attendance records and home-care claims are fabricated, investigators must reconstruct both who was enrolled and whether anyone actually received care.
