According to the Clarion-Ledger, a Jackson, Mississippi newspaper, Nelson Wilson Jr., CP, who owned B M & W Prosthetic and Orthotic, Jackson, has been sentenced to 47 months in prison and ordered to pay $441,305 in restitution for Medicare fraud and fraudulently concealing assets from bankruptcy. Wilson pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in December 2008.
According to assistant U.S. Attorney Jack Lacy, Wilson produced prostheses that weren't authorized by a doctor or fitted by qualified people, and delivered some to people who hadn't requested them or couldn't use them. Lacy was quoted as saying, "Sometimes he would provide artificial limbs for people who didn't need them and leave them on the doorstep and the guy would say, 'What's this?'" Wilson had billed Medicare for $15 million over a four-year period.
Court documents also show that Wilson, 54, concealed from bankruptcy proceedings assets valued at $202,500, including a house, an eight-acre farm, 17 horses, jewelry, two recreational vehicles, and $100,000 in personal loans.
Five years ago, the Clarion-Ledger reported that the ambitious Wilson paid for the education of an aviation student at Delta State University, Cleveland, Mississippi, in exchange for the student agreeing to later fly what Wilson dreamed would become a fleet of corporate planes for B M & W.
