North Carolina woman pleads guilty to Medicaid Fraud in South Carolina

(COLUMBIA, S.C.) – South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson announced that Pearl L. Griffin, 60, of Greensboro, NC, pleaded guilty in Richland County General Sessions Court on August 30^th. Griffin pleaded guilty to ‘Obtaining Signature or Property under False Pretenses’, value $10,000 or more (16-13-240). Griffin was sentenced to three years in prison, the balance of which was suspended to five years of probation with $16,500 ordered in restitution to the South Carolina Medicaid Program.

This case was referred to the S.C. Attorney General’s Office Medicaid Fraud Control Unit by the S.C. Department of Health and Human Services and was investigated and prosecuted by the S.C. Attorney General’s Office. Griffin was the co-owner of New Outlook Second Chance (NOSC), which operated as a Behavioral Health provider that provided counseling to adults and children out of offices in Columbia and Sumter. The investigation revealed that Griffin conspired to create and then submitted fraudulent documentation in order to bill S.C. Medicaid for services that NOSC did not provide between October of 2014 and December of 2015.

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.