The Office of the Maryland Attorney General announced a Parkville mother and daughter were sentenced in a $3.6 Million Medicaid Fraud Scheme. Here is the full release.
Attorney General Anthony G. Brown today announced the sentencing of Tasha S. Saunders, 46, and her daughter Tamyra Jordan, 26, both of Parkville, for their roles in a scheme to defraud Medicaid of more than $3.6 million.
“Stealing millions from Medicaid while on probation for identical fraud is a brazen insult to vulnerable Marylanders,” said Attorney General Brown. “These sentences deliver justice and protect the lifesaving healthcare one in four Marylanders depend on.”
On December 8, 2025, in the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County, Saunders was sentenced to a total of 10 years of incarceration –5 years for each of two counts of Medicaid Fraud. On November 6, 2025, Jordan was sentenced to 5 years of supervised probation and ordered to pay $232,900 restitution for her role in the fraud.
A third co-defendant, Robert Higgins, will be sentenced on January 13, 2026. Higgins previously pleaded guilty and agreed to pay back $341,900. Medicaid is a joint federal-state program that provides healthcare benefits to low-income individuals.
Between November 2019 and September 2024, Saunders operated two behavioral health companies, Guiding Lives Inc. and Another Chance Supportive Services LLC (ACSS) that submitted fraudulent claims for Psychiatric Rehabilitation Program (PRP) services. PRP is a program that provides community-based comprehensive rehabilitation and recovery services for individuals suffering from serious mental health conditions.
Saunders recruited Jordan, her daughter, to manage and conduct billing for Guiding Lives Inc. The defendants accomplished the fraud by systematically forging signatures, composing fake patient records, and stealing the identities of unwitting healthcare providers and Medicaid recipients alike, causing Maryland Medicaid to reimburse $3,672,958.66 for services that were not provided.
Relevant to the present sentence is Saunders’s 2021 conviction for Medicaid Fraud in which she pleaded guilty to a single count of Felony Medicaid Fraud. In that case, Saunders admitted to similar conduct involving two different mental health companies.
As part of her plea in the prior case, Saunders admitted to creating fake patient files, stealing the identities of licensed counselors, and submitting fraudulent claims to Medicaid for PRP services that had not been provided. Saunders was sentenced to 9 months incarceration, followed by 9 months home detention, 5 years of supervised probation, and ordered to pay restitution of $470,744.67.
As a result of her first conviction, Saunders was placed on the Health and Human Services-Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG) Exclusion List. HHS-OIG has the authority to exclude individuals and entities from working for or receiving payment from federal healthcare programs for, among other reasons, conviction of a criminal offense related to the delivery of an item or service under any state health care program.
Medicaid is a federally funded healthcare program. Saunders’ status on the Exclusion List led to her further lie on her Medicaid provider application, hiding her affiliation with the new companies she was creating.
Between January 1, 2022, and September 12, 2024, Saunders, Jordan, and Higgins operated Guiding Lives, fraudulently billing Maryland Medicaid for services that were not rendered. The defendants created fake patient records to conceal the fraud scheme, including billing for recipients who had also been falsely claimed by Saunders’ prior companies. Those same recipients never received services from any company. The defendant’s operation of Guiding Lives occurred while she was on the Exclusion List. During this time, Maryland Medicaid paid Guiding Lives $2,837,958.66 for fraudulent claims.
While still on probation and excluded from Medicaid participation, Saunders incorporated ACSS in September 2022.
Saunders concealed her involvement with ACSS by using the names of multiple unwitting individuals to incorporate the company.
Between June 1, 2023, through September 12, 2024, Saunders and co-defendant Higgins submitted false claims on behalf of ACSS totaling $835,000.00, which was paid to bank accounts controlled by Saunders and Higgins.
These claims submitted misrepresented the legitimacy of the company, that the company was being operated by the individuals listed on corporate documents, and that it did not employ anyone on the HHS-OIG Exclusion List.
Every claim submitted for reimbursement is predicated on the provider’s truthfulness about its own operation and services it purports to provide. In addition to this false representation that ACSS was a legitimate company, the services ACSS submitted for reimbursement did not in fact happen.
During the course of the investigation, the state executed nearly a dozen search warrants for email records, cloud storage accounts and cell phones. Those records revealed a sophisticated system for generating fake patient records that were a prerequisite to billing Maryland Medicaid. The state also interviewed numerous Medicaid recipients who had no knowledge of the companies or the services billed under their names.
Saunders also stole the identities of licensed healthcare providers, including the identities of faculty from the University of Maryland School of Medicine to fabricate referrals and rehabilitation plans.
These documents were submitted to the Maryland Department of Health to obtain authorization to bill for PRP services that also never occurred.
In making today’s announcement, Attorney General Brown thanked Unit Director Zak Shirley, Assistant Attorneys General James M.C. McHale and Catherine Schuster Pascale, and Senior Fraud Analyst Paul Kidd, Fraud Analyst Laura Webber, and Senior Investigative Auditor Todd Sheffer of the Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud and Vulnerable Victims Unit for their work on this case.
Attorney General Brown also thanked the Office of Inspector General, Health and Human Services Special Agent in Charge Maureen Dixon, Assistant Special Agent in Charge Andre Jacobs, and Special Agent Matt Gray and the Maryland State Police.
The Maryland Office of the Attorney General, Medicaid Fraud and Vulnerable Victims Unit receives 75 percent of its funding from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under a grant award totaling $7,119,096 for Federal fiscal year (FY) 2026.
The remaining 25 percent, totaling $2,373,032 for FY 2026, is funded by the State of Maryland.