(COLUMBIA, S.C.) – South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson announced that Bethena Jackson, 57 years old, of Burlington, NC, pleaded guilty in Richland County General Sessions Court on September 21, 2021. Jackson pleaded guilty to Obtaining Signature or Property under False Pretenses, value $10,000 or more in violation of SC Code §16-13-240. Jackson was sentenced to seven years in prison, the balance of which was suspended to five years of probation with $24,273.55 ordered in restitution to the South Carolina Medicaid Program.
The S.C. Department of Health and Human Services referred this case to the S.C. Attorney General’s Office Medicaid Fraud Control Unit for criminal investigation and prosecution. Jackson was the co-owner of New Outlook Second Chance (NOSC), which operated as a Behavioral Health provider, providing counseling services to adults and children. NOSC had offices in Columbia and Sumter. The investigation revealed that Jackson, along with co-owner Pearl L. Griffin and several NOSC employees, conspired to create and then submitted fraudulent documentation in order to bill S.C. Medicaid for services that NOSC did not provide between October 2014 and December of 2015. Griffin was previously convicted on August 30, 2021, also in Richland County General Sessions Court.
The South Carolina MFCU receives 75 percent of its funding from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under a grant award totaling $1,478,492 for Federal fiscal year 2021. The remaining 25 percent, totaling $492,826 for FY 2021, is funded by South Carolina.