On Monday, Augustine Ihenacho Nnadi, a Medicaid fraud analyst with the Texas Attorney General’s Office, was arrested for bribery.
Agents with the FBI and the Texas Attorney General’s Office arrested Nnadi Monday morning in Houston, Texas. According to the criminal complaint, Nnadi is charged with accepting more than $5,000 from a criminal defendant in exchange for assistance on a pending Medicaid Fraud case. If convicted of the federal charge, Nnadi faces up to 10 years in prison and a possible $250,000 fine.
Jerry Strickland, Communications Director for the Office of the Attorney General released the following statement:
“The Attorney General’s Office works every day to root out and crack down on illegal activity, wherever it occurs — including public corruption. In this case, we worked with the FBI, the US Attorney’s Office and the Texas Rangers to assist with the investigation and arrest of Augustine Ihenacho Nnadi on criminal charges. In the last 11 years, the Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud investigators have been involved in cases that led to the arrest of hundreds of individuals on fraud charges. In addition, our office has prosecuted more than 100 public officials and employees for breaching the public trust. We will continue working with federal, state and local officials to hold public officials and employees accountable.”
The operation was a collaborative law enforcement effort between the FBI, the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas, the Texas Rangers and the Office of the Attorney General.
As the FBI state at the bottom of their release, “A criminal complaint is a formal accusation of criminal conduct, not evidence. A defendant is presumed innocent unless and until convicted through due process of law.”