A federal prosecutor is seeking to introduce as evidence at Carthage counselor Tammy Neil’s trial this month records from a Medicaid fraud indictment in the state of Nevada.

Neil is scheduled to go to trial Feb. 13 in U.S. District Court in Springfield on 24 counts of drug distribution and money laundering. The charges relate to an alleged conspiracy with her deceased ex-husband, Dr. John Freitas, to distribute large quantities of prescription drugs, including phentermine and the narcotic hydrocodone, through their former business, the Complete Quick Care Clinic in Carthage.

At a hearing Tuesday, U.S. Magistrate James England denied a motion by Neil and her attorneys for a continuance of the trial to a later date.

Randall Eggert, the assistant U.S. attorney prosecuting the case, filed the government’s proposed witness and exhibit lists at the hearing, along with various required pretrial notices, including a notice of intention to introduce evidence of a 30-count indictment of Neil and Freitas 10 years ago in Nevada.

The 2002 charges were mentioned in the indictment of Neil handed up by a federal grand jury in May 2010. But the only remaining open record of those Medicaid fraud charges that the Globe was able to find showed that Neil and Freitas entered no-contest pleas to misdemeanor theft charges in a plea deal. They were ordered to perform 40 hours of community service, and to repay the state $157,500 in penalties and costs of enforcement.

A news release from the state attorney general’s office in Nevada announcing the plea deal stated that Neil and Freitas employed the services of a health care worker who did not have proper credentials, and that they submitted bills to the state’s Medicaid fund for reimbursement for the worker’s services.

The notice filed Tuesday by Eggert suggests that the improperly credentialed health care worker in the news release was Neil herself: “Count 12 alleged that Neil and Dr. Freitas agreed that Neil would provide psychological services to geriatric residents of long-term care facilities, and those services would be billed to Medicaid as if an authorized Medicaid provider performed the services.

“At that time, she was a student in the (doctorate) program at (the University of Nevada-Las Vegas). She was not, therefore, an authorized Medicaid provider for psychological services to geriatric patients.

“Counts 19-27 charge Neil with making false claims to Medicaid while posing as an authorized health care provider. Count 29 charged Neil with practicing psychology without a license. Count 30 charged Neil with practicing medicine without a license.

“Count 30 specifically alleges that staff observed Neil order prescription medications or make adjustments to already prescribed medication dosage levels. It also alleges that Neil ordered a prescription style sedative for a resident of a health care facility.”

Springfield attorney Richard Monroe, who is representing Neil, declined to comment on the government’s court filing.

“I won’t comment on it other than to say we will be contesting that and other matters,” Monroe said.

Eggert’s notice states that the prosecution is seeking to introduce records of the previous indictment “for the purposes of showing motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge or absence of mistake or accident.”

The notice argues: “In the present case, defendant Neil and Dr. Freitas were sanctioned in the state of Nevada for unethical billing for medical care, which included defendant Neil posing as a licensed health care provider when she was merely a student.

“Immediately after losing their ability to engage in this fraud in Nevada, they moved to Missouri, bought the Complete Quick Care Clinic and began to operate a similar scheme, although by this time, Neil had presumably completed her (doctorate) program, and they decided not to use Medicaid in the Missouri clinic, operating Complete Quick Care on a cash basis.”

The government contends that the clinic became the eighth highest purchaser of hydrocodone in Missouri in its first year of operations. The following year, authorities say, the clinic led the state in volume purchased of the narcotic.

As a licensed doctor of osteopathic medicine, Freitas was registered with the Drug Enforcement Administration to write prescriptions. Neil, as a professional counselor, was not. The indictment alleges that the clinic dispensed large quantities of prescription drugs “outside the usual course of professional practice and for no legitimate medical purpose.”

Neil and Freitas divorced in December 2007, and she received the clinic in court proceedings. Freitas moved to Florida before the DEA seized the clinic’s records in June 2008. Freitas committed suicide in February 2010 in Sarasota, Fla.





Jail services



INDICTED COUNSELOR Tammy Neil’s clinic has been the provider of medical and psychological services to jails in six counties in Southwest Missouri.