'Tis The Season To Kick Off The 2020 Child Welfare Propaganda Battle To Cover Up Medicaid Fraud

For those of you who do not know, Heather Catallo was one of the first reporters, along with Jack Kresnak and his coverage of Ricky Holland, and Diane Bukowski, who dared touch this subject matter, and on that fact alone, should be honored.

Oakwood is a haven for Medicaid Fraud when it comes to diagnosis and scripting up people, for there are many, many tales to be told.

Wolverine used to dole that stuff out in handfuls to the kids, even after DOJ prosecutes.

These Psychobabies,* "The Ones Who Were Lied To That They Know Everything" are all up in child welfare where they come from overseas with a fake ass certificate, from a fake ass U.S. sponsored university, with fake ass research, with fake ass letters of support from other fake ass persons of authority, including, but not limited to the "Elected Ones", where those forged letters of support typically go for about $5K a pop the last time I witnessed.

The real letters of support normally have many legal fees attached to the congressional office, but I digress.

Not really because this is about Medicaid Fraud in Child Welfare and no one cares because 'tis the season to campaign.

FUN FACT! A CHILD WELFARE WORKER CAN DO AN AXIS III DIAGNOSIS ON A KID IN FOSTER CARE

Now, who is going after all that Medicaid Fraud in Child Welfare?

You do know they also generate fraudulent diagnoses on the parents of the kids, based upon the report and recommendations of child welfare workers.

Back in the day, some child welfare workers did not even have GEDs and none were sworn civilians to represent the courts and law enforcement, until the Madame Maura Corrigan (said in a high British accent) realized that there were no oaths of office.

I believe the Madame had the revelation, then, so lovingly tossed the perfection of my prayers, like a good little christian, out of court because....[sic] the court has not been swayed.

Metro Detroit doctor accused of falsely diagnosing hundreds of kids with epilepsy

(WXYZ) — Lawyers say a local doctor falsely diagnosed hundreds of metro Detroit children with epilepsy, and they say he did it for money. Many families are now suing, but it’s taken 11 years to finally have their day in court.

Dr. Yasser Awaad is in the middle of the second of 267 lawsuits filed against him. Lawyers say hundreds of kids were forced to endure grueling medical tests multiple times, including forcing kids to stay awake all night so they could be sleep deprived. But they never actually needed them.

Mariah Martinez was just 9 years old when she said she was referred to Awaad for headaches. At the time, he worked for Oakwood Healthcare, which is now owned by Beaumont.

"I feel like it shouldn’t be this hard to go see a doctor," Martinez said. "Shouldn’t be this hard to get up in the morning."

Martinez says Awaad wanted her to undergo an electroencephalogram, or EEG, and then told her she had epilepsy. Martinez says she was confused because she’d never had a seizure.

“I didn’t know what epilepsy was at that point," she said.

"Were you scared?" 7 Investigator Heather Catallo asked.

Mariah Martinez was just 9 when she went to see Dr. Yasser Awaad for headaches. He diagnosed her with a form of epilepsy. Tonight on @wxyzdetroit at 6PM, I'll show you how she's just 1 of 100s of local young people he's accused of falsely diagnosing. @michiganLARA @MIAttyGen pic.twitter.com/mE0ZaJHxcv

— Heather Catallo WXYZ (@HeatherCatallo) October 21, 2019

"Yeah, being told you’re abnormal, or the tests are abnormal, means I’m not like everyone else, and at that age, you just want to fit in," Martinez responded.

She said the anti-seizure medication not only made her drowsy – it made her headaches worse.

"I kind of withdrew into myself, didn’t want to be around people," she added.

It wasn’t until Awaad suddenly left his practice four years later and she saw a new doctor that Martinez says she found out – she never had epilepsy.

"I was very angry at first, very angry," she said.

"What have you lost?" Catallo asked.

"I lost, I feel like a piece of my childhood. All the time I could have been learning to do things, playing with the other kids, I could have friends, I could have joined a sport – you never know," she said.

Martinez was not alone.

"I think it’s despicable and deplorable that he would do this to any innocent child let alone several hundred," medical malpractice lawyer Brian McKeen said. McKeen and a team of attorneys are suing Awaad and the hospital.

"When you look at all the evidence in this case, Heather, the conclusion is inescapable. That this was done intentionally," he said.

McKeen alleges Awaad ran an EEG mill: the more tests he ran on the kids, the more money he made.

"As a result of the bonus, you made hundreds of thousands of dollars, didn't you?" McKeen asked Awaad at a 2018 deposition.

"I was entitled to," Awaad said.

Brian McKeen is a medial malpractice lawyer who's representing 267 people suing a doctor accused of falsely diagnosing them with epilepsy. On @wxyzdetroit 6PM, I'll show you why McKeen thinks the state didn't do enough to discipline the doctor @michiganLARA @MIAttyGen pic.twitter.com/0UBpgIO8qY

— Heather Catallo WXYZ (@HeatherCatallo) October 21, 2019
McKeen says one of Awaad’s pediatric neurology colleagues even blew the whistle on him to Oakwood administrators back in 2003.

"She told them he’s doing unnecessary EEGs, he’s diagnosing kids with epilepsy that don’t have it and he’s giving kids unnecessary drugs and they did not do anything about it. They swept it under the rug," McKeen said.

McKeen says Awaad also falsely diagnosed Martinez’s sister with epilepsy; and in a different family, he’s accused of misdiagnosing 4 out of 5 siblings.

Hundreds of medical licensing records obtained by the 7 Investigators show that since 2010, the state has been accusing Awaad of violating the public health code for wrongly diagnosing kids with epilepsy. The state complaints use words like negligence and incompetence to describe Dr. Awaad, yet he still held on to his medical license.

In 2012, he was put on probation and had to pay a $10,000 fine.

"That wasn’t enough. They should suspend his license. He should never be allowed the opportunity to practice medicine and violate the trust of any other patient," McKeen said.

In June, a jury awarded Mariah Martinez $3 million for her case against Dr. Awaad. Another of the 267 trials is currently under way in Wayne County Circuit Court.

"I don’t know if I’ll ever be 100 percent," Martinez said.

We reached out to Beaumont and their lawyer, but they can't comment due to the pending litigation and patient privacy laws. A spokesman also told us they have not had a relationship with Awaad since 2017.

Beaumont spokesman Mark Geary declined to provide someone to talk to the 7 Investigators on camera. Geary released this statement to us:

“The litigation involving Dr. Yasser Awaad and Oakwood Healthcare dates back more than a decade to 2007. We cannot comment about the specifics of this case or others because of pending legal proceedings and patient privacy laws.

After his employment with Oakwood Healthcare, Dr. Awaad was briefly employed by Beaumont to provide medical education and clinical curriculum for residents and medical students in pediatric neurology. He completed this work in 2017 and has not had any relationship with Beaumont since that time.”

Meanwhile, the Michigan Attorney General's Office has filed another administrative complaint against Awaad’s license. The hearing was supposed to be held next week, but Awaad’s lawyers asked for it to be delayed. It’s now scheduled in March.

* I have written a treatise on Psychobabies and shall update with a link and a post! Besides, it would be boring to just drop everything, long before it plays out.

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All Hail The Whistleblowers: Starletta Banks, The First To Uncover Trafficking Of Tiny Humans Operations In Michigan CPS

Starletta Banks

Starletta Banks was the first to uncover the deepest, darkest residuals of the peculiar institution, called trafficking of tiny humans, better recognized as Child Welfare.

Child Protective Services.

Foster Care.

Adoption.

Her tale goes like this:

Starletta had just had her third child.

She had a request for a crib through the welfare office.

A CPS worker came out about the crib and heard the baby crying.

The CPS worker called Wayne County Sheriff and Detroit Police who did a joint raid, knocked down her door, to save the kids from abuse and neglect.

Starletta was changing a diaper upstairs and did not hear the knock on the door due to the baby crying.

She heard the police raid the house, but did not know they were police, grabbed her two older children leaving the baby on the bed and hid in the closet, covering the mouths of her two screaming kids.

Police and Sherrif snatched her kids.

In court, CPS investigators gave Jennifer Granholm reports of broken bones of the baby, who was only few months under one year of age.

Granholm, the State Assistant Attorney General for Wayne County, the only county in Michigan where the Attorney General prosecutes child abuse while defending the private contractors of child welfare and its placing agencies with no bid contracts, submitted into evidence x-rays, and broken bones and trauma of a child about 5 years of age, if I correctly recall.

That baby was under the age of one.

Starletta's parental rights were terminated.

She was the first person to ever get permits to protest outside the Michigan Eastern District Courthouse.

No one showed up in the snow, but I did, just to take pictures and cheer her on.

I will have to find those pictures.

She began to teach herself law.

She was embraced by Michigan Republican Leadership who did nothing but use her, but she caught on quickly (which is another tale.)

Starletta shared her research methodologies and findings with me, long before Yahoo Groups.

She said since Michigan did not want to show their dirt in court or in FOIA, she said to find the backdoors.

She would spend days in the bowels of Lincoln Hall of Justice Clerk's Office, pulling cases she found on the Court of Appeals, challenging Termination of Parental Rights in Wayne County where Jennifer Granholm submitted the exact same x-rays, in case after case.

I can recall seeing at least eight case files where the same evidence, and arguments were submitted, as templates for Termination of Parental Rights.

CHILD REMOVAL LAWS ARE UNCONSTITUTIONAL, HURT MICHIGAN FAMILIES, ACLU CHARGES IN FEDERAL LAWSUIT

Consider this a recording of her name in the annals of history, Civil Rights, 2.0.

Starletta Banks v State of ... by on Scribd

I mastered their system, along with all their complex, financial fraud schemes.

I heeded her advice, but took it all to the next level.

Michigan Chronicle V.XXV

Granholm steals babies, protesters say Article from:Michigan Quarterly Review Article date:August 10, 2002Author:Bukowski, Diane

Bukowski, Diane Michigan Citizen 08-10-2002 Carrying signs reading, "F.I.A.: Families in Agony," a small but passionate band of protesters has dogged gubernatorial candidate Jennifer Granholm's steps in Detroit.

In torrential rains outside the Channel 7 candidates' debate in Southfield July 21, and again outside the Northwest Activities Center July 23, Starletta Banks, her mother Barbara Banks, friends and organizers of Unity for Parents and Children demanded the return of Starletta's three small children, taken by Granholm's representatives in the attorney general's office in 1999.

"In the year 2000 alone, 27,000 children across Michigan were taken from their families," said Karon Hamilton, state-wide chair of Unity for Parents and Children. "That's way up from the two years of 1997 and 1998, when 30,000 were taken."

She said a national movement of families is underway, who say state social work agencies like Michigan's Family Independence Agency (FIA) are unjustly pursuing child abuse charges in order to obtain federal bonuses for adoption of children in foster care.

 In August, that movement will come to Michigan with the traveling "Quilt of Tears," listing the names of children who have been taken.

Starletta's children, Darius Banks, now 8, and Danielle and Darren Austin, now 4 and 2 respectively, were taken into foster care after Starletta took Danielle to Henry Ford Hospital when she fell out of her mother's bed.

 Medical personnel at the hospital claimed Danielle's X-rays showed evidence of old healing fractures, but X-rays taken shortly thereafter at Children's Hospital and St. John's Macomb Hospital have shown no such fractures.

Despite the recommendations of all social workers and psychiatrists involved, that the children be returned, Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Patricia Campbell terminated Starletta's parental rights in 2000. Her actions were predicated on the recommendation of the attorney general's representative, Richard Karoub.

"I appealed to Jennifer Granholm in writing in 1999," said Starletta, "and I personally spoke with her outside the UPN 50 offices where she was speaking February 7, 2001. I gave her the newspaper articles from the Michigan Citizen and other documentation. She promised to help, but she has not. Many families have lost their precious children to this type of corruption that she has allowed to go on."

Starletta lost a court battle earlier this month after her court-appointed attorney failed to show up for oral arguments in front of the appellate court, but she has since filed a well-researched letter-perfect motion for re-hearing, citing numerous legal precedents.

"I work midnights, and I get no sleep," said Starletta," because every morning at 7 a.m. I am doing my paperwork, because I have to get my babies back."

 Family friend Irwin Johnson, picketing with the Banks family, said, "In Detroit and across the nation, it boils down to a racial issue. How can Black kids be over 50 percent of the foster care system, but make up only 20 percent of the population?"

Leaving the Northwest Activities Center, Attorney General Granholm would not get out of her car or talk to Starletta and the protesters. The media spokesperson from Attorney General Granholm's office, Genna Gent, said, "I can tell you that the Attorney General immediately turned those documents over to our Children and Youth Services Division and asked them to look into it right away. However, both the trial court and the appellate court have already ruled on the case, and the Attorney General cannot overturn court rulings. Because there is a request for a re-hearing, she cannot comment further. But she does take such concerns of constituents very seriously."

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Michigan DHS Neglected Detroit DHS, Rights To Be Terminated

I just adore Madame Corrigan (spoken in a high British accent), the arrogance of indifference, the indolence of immunity, the dismissive concerns that it was her Department of Human Services and her legislating from the bench that allowed  the malfeasance and misfeasance in Detroit Department of Human Services in the first place.

See, Michigan DHS is the recipient of federal grants whereby there are certain mandated guidelines in order to continue eligibility of its terms..uh...like grant management of its subrecipients.  One of its subrecipients was Detroit DHS.

If the Madame does not make it look like her Department has been in federal compliance of its funding, then Michigan is going to loose a whole lot of money, the same way the feds do not want to grant Detroit any more Head Start money.

Michigan DHS failed to provide for the necessary needs of the City of Detroit DHS.  Those necessary needs were financial guidance and regulartory oversight as a subrecipient, pursuant to OMB Cir A-133.  As a result the City of Detroit has failed to financially thrive.  Reasonable efforts have been made to prevent removal of Federal Financial Participation Rates of certain grants in HHS OIG DAB rulings.  It is in the best interest of the City of Detroit to recommend termination of the public right to corporate oversight of the State of Michigan and place the City of Detroit into federal receivership.

Michigan DHS is just as jacked up, if not more, as Detroit DHS.  

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black, Madame Corrigan.  Andrew Arena needs to expand the scope of the task force to include your history of paper shredding and white out.

CORRIGAN DEMANDS COUNCIL CEDE CONTROL OF CITY DHS

Posted on 03/06/2012 by Diane Bukowski

Maura Corrigan demands City Council hand over Detroit Department of Human Services/ March 2, 2012

 State illegally withholds $8 million meanwhile, causing thousands to go without services; no documentation for charges of mismanagement 

State wants Wayne Metro CAA to take over; WMCAA board meeting Thursday, March 15 at 2 p.m. at 2121 Biddle, #102 Wyandotte, MI

By Diane Bukowski 

March 3, 2012 

DETROIT – Maura Corrigan, who cut 15,000 Michigan families off public assistance and then recently called most of them part of “the underground economy” and “gamers” in published remarks, came to Detroit March 2 to demand that the City Council voluntarily cede control of the Detroit Human Services Department. 

Corrigan said she wants the Wyandotte-based Wayne-Metropolitan Community Action Agency (WMCAA), run by an 18-member board dominated by wealthy suburban and corporate representatives from areas like Grosse Ile, to take over after DHS is de-designated as Detroit’s “community action agency.” 

Her reason? 

“Our goal is that Detroit residents receive every single cent of government assistance that is due to them,” Corrigan said. Corrigan is head of the state Department of Human Services, appointed by Gov. Rick Snyder. She was previously a right-wing State Supreme Court justice. 

Corrigan said the state is withholding nearly $8 million in federal community services block grants from the city’s DHS, and will not renew the contract for the city’s $17 million home weatherization program March 31. After not being paid for several weeks, contractual weatherization workers were laid off Dec. 14, leaving hundreds of Detroiters, mostly seniors, with half-completed work on their homes. 

The rest of the department is essentially shut down, according to Cecily McClellan, Vice-President of the Association of Professional and Technical Employees. No funds have come in from the state since Oct. 1, 2011. She said there are no funds and personnel left for the department to distribute emergency food resources, pay back due energy bills, prevent evictions, and repair houses using mainly small Black contractors, who are also not being paid. 

“The funds are already suspended,” Councilwoman JoAnn Watson told Corrigan. “Our people are not able to get service, and because they were cut off welfare by the State, the only place they can go is the city, and now they cannot get service there either because the state is illegally withholding the funds. These grants(WCMAA board meets Thurs. March 15 at       were intended for the people of          2 p.m. at 2121 Biddle, #102 Wyandotte, MI.)  Detroit to have services and employment.” 

Chris Griffiths demands the City Council stand up to Corrigan, while Bertram Marks and APTE V-P Cecilyn McClellan listen

Corrigan said a joint investigation by state and federal inspectors along with the FBI is going on to turn up “potentially illegal misuse of funds.” She threatened that if the Council did not agree to voluntarily give up control of DHS, “we will move forward with adversarial proceedings to de-certify DHS as a community action agency.” 

During her exchange with City Council members, Corrigan refused to address them by their titles, for example calling Councilwoman JoAnn Watson “Ms. Watson.” She snubbed city residents who packed the chamber in support of the city’s DHS by walking out before public comment. 

Councilwoman JoAnn Watson tells Corrigan the state cut-off of funds to DHS is illegal.

“Those folks who just left think we are stupid,” said one speaker afterwards. “I’m not stupid, I have two college degrees and studied law. Nobody in this room is stupid. But she said the people of Detroit don’t understand. She threatened you [the Council] with no basis. She even said she lost the paperwork involved. Do not give away DHS simply because they walked in here and asked you to.” 

During public comment, Chris Griffiths stood to declare, “I speak for the people of Detroit in asking you to disapprove the transfer of funds belonging to us. The people of Detroit need jobs and we will lose those jobs if this happens. Corrupt individuals from the state have come in under the pretense of helping us but they are robbing us.” 

Angeles Hunt of DHS advisory board tells Council to stand up for DHS

Angeles Hunt, who is a City of Detroit retiree and now serves as an elected member of the Human Services Commission, said, “I want to know how this can be done without even any notification to us. The City Council must fight for DHS.” 

Several building contractors testified that they are owed millions in funds for work they have already done in the weatherization program. 

In an aside, Councilman Kwame Kenyatta said regarding Mayor Dave Bing, “We have one administration locked up, maybe we need the current one locked up too.”

Bing has already agreed to a voluntary de-designation of DHS in an exchange of letters with the governor’s office, although he is not authorized to do so without City Council consent according to law.  He did not bother to come himself or send representatives to the Council hearing, enraging many Council members as well as the public. 

Only Council President Pro-Tem Gary Brown openly supported voluntary de-designation. 

“I wholeheartedly believe that the city ought to get out of the business of things it doesn’t do well,” Brown said. “I support a Detroit-based Detroit-headquartered entity being designated.” 

Corrigan however countered that  a “community action agency” has to comply with specific requirements, and that  since Wayne Metro is already a CAA, it can continue services without fund cut-offs while Requests for Proposals for private contracts are submitted. She said the City of Detroit would not be eligible to submit such a proposal.

“Last spring, we became aware of severe problems with DHS,” Corrigan said. “They have fallen far short of what is required by federal law even though the state provided technical assistance. . . there is strong evidence of years of mismanagement, misuse of funds, and criminal activity.” 

Standing room only crowd packed Council chambers 3 2 12

Corrigan claimed “50 to 74 percent of the money” allocated to DHS went to residents who were ineligible.  She claimed the department was double-billing the state DHS and Department of Education for various services. She did not produce evidence of this, claiming it was currently under wraps due to the criminal investigation. 

Corrigan claimed she had provided the City Council with numerous notices of illegal DHS practices, but Councilman Kwame Kenyatta, who heads the Community Services Committee, said his committee has not received any such notices. 

Councilman Gary Brown speaks in favor of de-designation of DHS

VOD obtained a package of reports on the city’s DHS by the Bureau of Community Action and Opportunity, the subdivision of the state’s DHS which has the ONLY authority to recommend de-designation. The reports are dated in August, 2010, June, 2011, and December, 2011. They completely contradict Corrigan’s allegations. (To view entire package including state audits of DHS, federal and state regulations for de-designation of a CAA, and exchange of letters between Mayor Bing and the Snyder administration, click on https://sendnow.acrobat.com/?i=WCiYm2hHKOFvMQAhdE0EYg . This download is only available for 7 days from date of this post, so it would be helpful to print it out. Document was too large for attachment to this post. If you miss the deadline, email VODeditor@hotmail.com and we will send you a copy.)

They are essentially routine reports on audits conducted of various divisions of the city’s DHS, which cite minor problems such as workers forgetting to include the quarterly DHS supplement for SSI payments in household income. That supplement is $41.00. The reports say clearly that the households would be eligible for service even with the funds included.  In some cases, the Bureau noted that DHS workers had incorrectly cited sources of income that should not have been included, but still allowed services. 

More Detroiters demand Council stand firm against state attack on Detroit DHS

In general, the Bureau says that all discrepancies they pointed out have been resolved, except for three findings, one of which was not the fault of DHS. 

 That was that the city’s budget and finance departments used DHS funds to pay $384,175 in interest on debt repayments for the $1.5 billion pension obligation certificate (POC) borrowing during the Kilpatrick administration in 2005. The state asked for reimbursement from the department. 

The Bureau also found that ONE two-member household was not eligible for weatherization assistance because its yearly income of $8,074.00 exceeded the poverty limit of $7,404. 

Councilwoman Brenda Jones opposed the voluntary de-designation.

The state also found that the department did not do criminal checks on a handful of contractual workers and asked that they do so. Nowhere in the reports does the Bureau recommend that the city’s DHS be de-designated as a community action agency.

(See box with requirements for de-designation, none of which Corrigan has followed. Also note box describing WMCAA board of directors, in particular its CEO Louis Piszker, who runs a for-profit agency out of WMCAA’s Ecorse office, mostly likely a complete conflict of interest. Perhaps Corrigan needs to be investigating WMCAA instead.)

Members of Young Detroit Builders who came to 2010 City Council hearing; three of them are now in college.

Since this story was published, VOD has found that funds the Detroit DHS provides to Young Detroit Builders (YDB) have also been cut. YDB is an educational and training program that helps young adults ages 18-24 earn their GED’s while getting hands-on construction training, doing community service and earning a living allowance. They receive counseling and mentoring as well. Many graduates of the program have gone on to college, including several of those in the picture at the right, who testified at a City Council hearing in 2010.

Officials said YDB funds administered by the city DHS are still owed for the months of August and September, 2011, and that no funds have been received from that grant since then. As a result, many of the workers who run the program have not been paid for weeks, and some have been forced to leave. YDB representatives who were present at the March 2 hearing were on the list to speak, but the hearing ended before they were allowed to do so. Their website is at www.youngdetroitbuilders.org .

Shenetta Coleman, former director of Detroit DHS (Photo from Facebook)

For background information on how Mayor Bing and the daily media conspired to dismantle Detroit DHS over the last several years, read the whistleblower lawsuit filed by Shenetta Coleman, former director of DHS, at Shenetta Coleman lawsuit best, Coleman alleges she was fired by Bing because she objected to the usage of DHS federal grant funds for renovation of the Herman Kiefer Health Complex in order to combine DHS with the Detroit Department of Health, for payment on the city’s POC debt, and to pay staff who did not work for DHS.