EDITORIAL: Which woman will be sentenced?

Jul. 25--It seems like just yesterday that we wrote about health care fraud. In fact it was in Wednesday's paper -- about the door-to-door Medicaid scam pulled last weekend in Waynesboro.

Today it's another neighboring county, and about Medicare fraud. And a federal judge now has to figure out what punishment fits the crime when he's scheduled to pass sentence next week.

Detra Wiley Pate was convicted several months ago in federal court on more than 30 counts of health care fraud, conspiracy to commit health care fraud and aggravated identity theft. As owner of Southern Respiratory in Thomson, investigators said that since 2014 she had submitted thousands of bogus claims, patient files and prescriptions. The plan was to defraud health care insurance programs, and prosecutors said Pate raked in more than $1 million.

Pate was found guilty of charging Medicare and other benefit programs for medical items that patients didn't get and doctors didn't order. One example brought up during trial: Instead of delivering heavy-duty wheelchairs, prosecutors say she swapped them out for regular lighter-weight wheelchairs and pocketed the difference in cost.

A restraining order in April prohibited Pate from selling off any assets, and her attorneys had to assure U.S. District Court J. Randal Hall that she wasn't trying to sell off her company, but merely trying through her corporate attorneys to get her affairs in order before sentencing. If she was found to have committed misconduct, that could have meant a harsher sentence in the federal judicial system.

That sentence is now the issue. A probation officer calculated a sentencing range of 10 to 12 years in prison with an additional two-year mandatory consecutive sentence. Pate's attorneys want a little over five years instead.

Dozens of letters have poured in attesting to her good character. She's a good Christian, the letters say. She helped her ill parents until their deaths. She's fed the hungry, and given Christmas gifts to needy children and free medical equipment to needy patients who couldn't pay. She has a good soul.

She also has a 1.5-carat diamond ring and a Rolex watch, prosecutors said in court documents. And prosecutors say they're pretty sure how she found the money to pay for them.

It is now up to Judge Hall to figure out, essentially, which person he's going to sentence.

Will it be the kind-hearted mother of two who her attorneys say has been left physically, mentally and emotionally drained by a long federal trial, and a divorce from her longtime husband?

Or will it be the well-heeled business owner who prosecutors say ran a company designed to help patients who needed wheelchairs, but apparently gave them the wrong wheelchairs -- intentionally, and for a dirty profit?

Both women share one thing in common: They apparently took more than $1 million in taxpayers' money -- your money.

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