The Atlanta Journal and Constitution

April 12, 1995, Wednesday, ALL EDITIONS

Psychiatrist, accountant given 2 years for fraud

BYLINE: Ellen Whitford; STAFF WRITER

SECTION: LOCAL NEWS, Pg. 4B

LENGTH: 376 words

A Dunwoody psychiatrist and Decatur accountant were sentenced Tuesday to two years in prison for bilking Medicaid of up to $ 534,000 by falsely claiming to provide therapy to low-income children.
Dr. Theodore Smith, 41, president of the medical staff at Charter Peachford Hospital, and accountant Helen Battle Malone, 45, were sentenced in DeKalb County Superior Court and ordered to repay Medicaid $ 235,717, the loss for which authorities had the best documentation. Each was sentenced to eight years’ probation after their prison terms.
Judges Edward Wheeler and James Weeks, who each heard a portion of the three-week trial, set the defendants’ bond at $ 50,000 pending appeal. Smith and Malone were given first-offender status, so their criminal records will be erased after their sentences are served.
Smith faces the possible loss or suspension of his medical license by the Composite Board of Medical Examiners, which regulates Georgia doctors.
“Most certainly the board will take action of some sort – absolutely,” said Andrew Watry, the board’s executive director. Watry declined to predict what sanction the board might impose, but he called Smith’s felony conviction “a revocable offense.”
Life Options, the program run by Malone and Smith, operated at several community centers and churches in south DeKalb County. Witnesses testified that Smith billed Medicaid for psychiatric therapy to children who in fact were receiving standard after-school care or counseling from social workers.
Prosecutor Nancy Allstrom called the operation “a complete sham . . . a shell to gain access to large amounts of money.”
The hearing Tuesday was jammed with nearly 50 spectators and character witnesses, some of whom testified that Smith was so trusting that his business judgment was sometimes impaired.
“He tends to be rather gullible,” Dr. Noel Rivers-Buckley, a psychiatrist at Charter Peachford, testified. Smith “seems to be quite easily taken in . . . from a business standpoint.”
Judge Weeks asked Rivers-Buckley how many hours a day a doctor would have to work to bill Medicaid $ 534,000 in an 11-month period – as Smith was convicted of doing.
Rivers-Buckley replied: “I’m not sure there are enough hours in the day.”