Finger Lakes Mental Health Official

Attorney General Spitzer and State Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities (OMRDD) Commissioner Thomas A. Maul today announced the arrest of Joseph Leonardo, a service coordinator with OMRDD's Finger Lakes district office, for falsely representing over a three-year period that he had met with OMRDD clients on more than 200 occasions and causing OMRDD to be wrongfully paid with Medicaid funds for those services.

"The defendant not only cheated the taxpayers of this state by causing OMRDD to bill for services never provided, but, at the same time, he cheated his clients who depended on him to help them obtain the services and support they needed to live better lives," said Spitzer. "Today's arrest sends a clear message that my office is committed to aggressively pursuing and prosecuting those individuals who steal from the taxpayers of this state."

Commissioner Maul said, "OMRDD has quality and oversight procedures in place to assure that services that are billed for are actually provided so that we can be certain that the needs of the people we serve are actually being met, and to assure that taxpayer money is appropriately spent. If we see that impropriety may have been committed, it is our practice to alert the proper officials, and we will continue to work with them on this and any other potential infractions of the law, to see that justice is served."

Leonardo was arraigned yesterday afternoon in Brighton Town Court on a felony complaint, charging him with Grand Larceny in the Second Degree, a Class C felony punishable by up to fifteen years in prison.

Service coordinators assist persons with developmental disabilities to develop, plan, implement, and monitor their own plan of services and support. According to Medicaid rules, the monthly billing for service coordination must be substantiated by a face-to face visit with the person and documented in the service coordinator's monthly notes. Medicaid billings by OMRDD are generated by the service coordinator's submission of a service coordination weekly contact report.

According to the felony complaint filed in the case, Leonardo, while employed as a service coordinator with the Finger Lakes Developmental Disabilities Services Office (DDSO), submitted and caused to be submitted to DDSO and OMRDD, weekly contact reports that falsely represented that on various dates between January 1, 2000, and July 29, 2002, he had face-to-face visits with clients, which he also falsely documented in his monthly notes. However, a review of Leonardo's travel vouchers and time sheets revealed that he was either not working or in different locations on the dates he claimed to have had face-to-face meetings with the clients. Based upon Leonardo's submissions, Finger Lakes DDSO and OMRDD submitted claims for his services to the New York State Medicaid program. As a result, OMRDD was paid more than $50,000 to which it was not entitled.

Spitzer noted that the investigation of Leonardo by his Medicaid Fraud Control Unit began with a referral by the regional director of the Finger Lakes Developmental Disabilities Services Office.

Leonardo, 52, lives at 16 Clay Hill in Rochester. He worked for the Finger Lakes Developmental Disabilities Services, located at 620 Westfall Road in Brighton, from 1974 to the present.

The case is being prosecuted by Special Assistant Attorney General Jerry M. Solomon, Director of the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit's Rochester Regional Office. Assisting in the investigations was Supervising Special Investigator Neil E. Davis and Associate Special Auditor Investigator Thomas M. Clarke.

The charge against the defendant is merely an accusation, and the defendant is presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty.