Three Lancaster residents sentenced in $250K Medicaid fraud scheme

LANCASTER, S.C. — Three Lancaster residents, Charles McKinley Griffin, Tika Michelle Griffin, and Kirk Nathan Evans, have been sentenced in a scheme to defraud Medicaid of nearly $250,000.

After Charles Griffin was barred from receiving Medicaid payments for prior violations, he and his wife, Tika, created a behavioral‑health company, Transformation Services, in Tika’s name to evade the ban.

Beginning in 2019, they recruited children from after‑school programs and summer camps, then billed Medicaid for individual behavioral‑health sessions that never occurred.

Therapists, including Evans, were not authorized to provide such services, and employees met with children in groups while billing as if they had met individually for hours.

A federal judge sentenced Charles and Tika Griffin to 30 months in prison and Evans to 10 months.

All three will serve three years of supervised release and were ordered to pay restitution totaling more than $246,000.

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