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A Laurel woman was sentenced Tuesday to three years' probation for submitting fraudulent Medicaid claims.

Lois Diane Fant, 61, pleaded guilty in June to billing Medicaid for $125,000 in services that had never been performed, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia.

Fant owned a now-defunct company that provided non-emergency transportation services to Medicaid recipients, and admitted that between January 2003 and June 2005 she submitted approximately 2,900 false claims for transportation services that her company had not actually provided, according to court documents.

"The defendant committed a serious crime by billing Medicaid for services not provided," prosecutors wrote in a document recommending the sentence to the judge. "The felony conviction, with probation of three years and six months' home detention, is a just and fair sentence for this crime."

Medicaid conducted an audit in June 2005 due to the high volume of claims Fant was submitting to the District of Columbia Medicaid office. Later that month, Fant's company was suspended from being a Medicaid provider, according to court documents.

In addition to the probation, a judge for the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., sentenced Fant to 180 days of home detention and ordered her to pay $125,000 in restitution.

Fant's attorney, Mary Petras, could not be reached by press time.

dleaderman@gazette.net