The U.S. Attorney’s Office on Thursday accused prominent Charlotte housing activist Cedric Dean of health care fraud in a civil court filing. The federal government said it was seizing property owned by Dean, and WSOC-TV reported agents raided his home in the Palisades in southwest Mecklenburg County.
The filing accused Dean of operating a scheme under which his group would acquire Medicaid beneficiary ID numbers from people at homeless shelters, halfway houses and encampments. He would then use those IDs to submit false claims for medical services, supportive housing, and treatment that they did not actually receive, according to the government. The filing says that Dean's group instead "provided free or discounted temporary housing, a meal, a payment, or other de minimis benefits."
The government said Dean and his "conspirators," who were not named, obtained “millions of dollars in fraud proceeds, which they funneled through numerous accounts.” They used that money to buy houses and other property, according to the government's filing.
“The conspirators billed exorbitant amounts for services that the conspirators could not, within the bounds of space and time, provide; and conducted billing that was 894% more than the provider that submitted the second highest number of similar claims, according to a peer comparison study,” the filing said. “All the while, the conspirators denied services to homeless individuals who could not provide Medicaid information useful to the conspirators for purposes of billing.”
Dean's company, Cedric Dean Holdings, billed Medicaid for about $14.5 million and was reimbursed for almost $9 million in nine months, the filing says. The filing also says "law enforcement has interviewed no less than eight witnesses" who worked for Dean or lived in his facilities.
The property seized by the government, according to the federal filing, includes three checking accounts, a Chevy Silverado, a GMC Yukon Denali, a GMC Yukon XL, two motorhomes allegedly used to recruit homeless people to sell their Medicaid ID numbers, two houses in Shelby and two houses in Charlotte.
The government's complaint against Dean is a civil filing and does not include any criminal charges.
Dean could not immediately be reached on Thursday by WFAE.
Tiawana Brown ally
Dean is perhaps best known as an ally of Charlotte City Council member Tiawana Brown. She was indicted on different fraud charges in May, accused of participating in a scheme to obtain fraudulent COVID-19 relief loans. Dean attended Brown’s news conference after the indictment and fiercely defended her.
Brown was not mentioned in the civil filing against Dean. She has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial.
A 2019 Charlotte Observer profile of Dean said he was convicted of robbery at 16 and served five years in state prison. After being released, he was convicted of selling crack cocaine, and spent more than 20 years in prison on that drug charge. He was released in 2017.
In 2019, he was the guest of Charlotte Democratic Rep. Alma Adams at the State of the Union speech in Washington, D.C.
At the time, Dean was working in a nonprofit to keep people out of prison.
His LinkedIn page today describes him as “a thugological expert, the creator of Deanism — the theory of how a thug is created and cured and the founder of Save a Child Month. Dean knows first-hand what thuggery means in his own life — living a true thug-life story. By age 23 he earned himself a federal prison sentence of Life without parole, plus 5 years, however, in 2017, it was reduced to immediate release. He has since rehabilitated his thugological life and now devotes himself full-time helping thugs and goons understand the forces behind their thuggery and gangsterism. He teaches them how to make things right — thugologically, emotionally and socially.”
This is a developing story and will be updated.
