One of the rooms at The Karen Ann Quinlan Home for Hospice in Fredon, NJ.
Los Angeles, California – The owner of two West Covina hospice companies was arrested Tuesday on federal charges alleging a years-long scheme to defraud Medicare of millions of dollars by enrolling non-terminal patients into hospice care and paying kickbacks to secure referrals. The indictment, unsealed in Los Angeles federal court, accuses 71-year-old Normita Sierra of submitting false claims to Medicare for more than $4.8 million, with the government ultimately paying out more than $3.8 million.
Sierra, also known as “Normie,” is charged with nine counts of health care fraud, one count of conspiracy, and four counts of illegal remuneration for health care referrals. Authorities say Sierra owned and operated Golden Meadows Hospice Inc. and D’Alexandria Hospice Inc., and masterminded the scheme from September 2018 through October 2022. Prosecutors allege that Sierra paid recruiters—known internally as “girl scout cookies”—up to $1,300 per patient per month to bring in new hospice clients, regardless of their medical eligibility.
Also arrested Tuesday was 55-year-old Rowena Elegado, known as “Weng,” who faces conspiracy and kickback charges. Authorities expect both women to appear in federal court in downtown Los Angeles for arraignment.
According to the indictment, the fraud relied on misrepresentation at nearly every level of patient care. Marketers allegedly recruited patients. Usually they’re referred by primary care physicians. Many were not terminally ill. Still, under Sierra’s direction, nurse practitioners like Relyndo Salcedo exaggerated their conditions in official records. Those records, in turn, were used by hospice physicians to certify the patients for care.
Salcedo, who pleaded guilty to health care fraud last month, admitted that he often found patients ineligible for hospice but was pressured by Sierra and her associates to falsify records. The result, prosecutors say, was a pipeline of healthy or marginally ill individuals placed into end-of-life care programs they did not need, draining federal health resources and undermining the integrity of hospice care.
Few of the patients enrolled under the scheme died during their hospice term—an outcome that would be expected if they had been truly terminal. Instead, many were discharged after about six months, some were then moved to Sierra’s home health company or another of her hospice ventures.
The financial gains were substantial. Golden Meadows billed Medicare for nearly $3.9 million, receiving just under $3 million. D’Alexandria billed almost $950,000, with Medicare paying more than $894,000.
Two others connected to the case—Carl Bernardo and Salcedo—have already pleaded guilty and await sentencing later this year. Sierra and Elegado, if convicted, face decades in federal prison.
As the case unfolds, it underscores a troubling pattern: vulnerable health care programs being exploited not by outsiders, but from within, by those entrusted to provide compassionate, necessary care.
