Maryland Behavioral Health Worker Pleads Guilty to Billing D.C. Medicaid for Therapy Sessions That Never Happened

WASHINGTON - Delly Shabani, 37, of Laurel, Maryland, pleaded guilty today in U.S. District Court in connection with a scheme to bill D.C. Medicaid for mental health services that were never provided or were grossly inflated, announced U.S. Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro.

Shabani pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan to one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud. Sentencing is pending.

Shabani is the sixth defendant to have been charged and the third defendant to have pleaded guilty in relation to this conspiracy.

According to court documents, Shabani was employed beginning in April 2022 as a Community Support Worker at Quality Healthcare Services, LLC (Quality), a D.C. Medicaid provider authorized to deliver mental health rehabilitative services to youth and adolescent beneficiaries. From January 2022 through at least February 2025, Shabani conspired with the company's controlling executive and its chief operations officer, along with other community support workers, to submit false and fraudulent claims for reimbursement to D.C. Medicaid.

According to court documents, the company's controlling executive directed Shabani and other community support workers to bill the maximum number of units allowed for each consumer regardless of medical necessity or whether the services were performed.

Community support workers were instructed to bill an hour's worth of services for every telehealth encounter no matter how long the call actually lasted. They were trained to pick a random time for the length of service, for example, billing 54 minutes instead of 60, to make the calls appear more realistic. Workers also were directed to bill three hours, and later one hour, for diagnostic assessments regardless of how much time was spent with the consumer.

Court documents further state that community support workers, including Shabani, were told to take information gathered during a single telehealth session, spread it across multiple fabricated encounter notes, and bill Medicaid for several days of services that were based on only one actual conversation with the consumer.

Investigators determined that Shabani's participation in the conspiracy resulted in a loss to Medicaid of over $250,000.

This case was investigated by the FBI Washington Field Office, the D.C. Office of the Inspector General's Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, and the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General. The District Department of Health Care Finance's Division of Program Integrity referred this matter and assisted during the investigation. The matter was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason Facci of the Fraud, Public Corruption, and Civil Rights Section.

prosecuting those who commit fraud against the American people. The Department's work to combat fraud supports President Trump's Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, a whole-of-government effort chaired by Vice President J.D. Vance to eliminate fraud, waste, and abuse within Federal benefit programs.  

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