A federal judge sentenced a Louisiana nurse practitioner to 87 months in prison today for her involvement in a huge health-care fraud conspiracy that billed Medicare for over $12 million in needless genetic tests. Scharmaine Lawson Baker, 59, of Fulshear, Texas, will also serve three years on supervised release and pay $1,508,868.25 in restitution.
Court documents and trial evidence revealed that Baker, a certified nurse practitioner and Medicare provider, took tens of thousands of dollars in illicit kickbacks and bribes. In exchange, she purchased costly cancer genetic tests from a company purporting to provide telehealth services between October 2018 and October 2019.
Baker had previously marketed herself as an expert in Medicare regulations, including producing books on medical necessity and patient-provider relationships, although intentionally breaking the same requirements.
Baker worked as an independent contractor, signing hundreds of test orders based on brief phone interactions with patients. She never personally examined the patients. During her trial, prosecutors presented a recorded phone call in which a telehealth company operator informed Baker she would be “rolling in money” if she signed the orders. Baker responded, “Honey, I am not complaining.”
The evidence given to the jury demonstrated that Baker served as a rubber stamp for compensation rather than providing medical care. She went so far as to request ovarian and cervical cancer testing for male patients. Furthermore, Baker never analyzed any of the test findings, even cases in which the data revealed that patients had genetic variations that put them at risk for cancer.
In sum, Baker’s orders resulted in almost $12.1 million in fraudulent Medicare claims. The laboratories involved received more than $1.5 million in Medicare reimbursements. Baker concealed the kickbacks and bribes she received from the telehealth company when she filed for bankruptcy. In July 2025, a federal jury convicted her of six charges of health care fraud after a three-day trial.
Assistant Attorney General Colin M. McDonald of the Justice Department’s National Fraud Enforcement Division announced the sentencing, as did U.S. Attorney David I. Courcelle for the Eastern District of Louisiana, Special Agent in Charge Jason E. Meadows of the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG), and Special Agent in Charge Jonathan Tapp of the FBI New Orleans Field Office.
The case was probed by the HHS-OIG and the FBI. It was prosecuted by trial attorneys Samantha E. Usher, Gary A. Crosby II, and Kelly Z. Walters of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section, as well as Assistant United States Attorney Nicholas D. Moses for the Eastern District of Louisiana.
This indictment is consistent with the efforts of the newly formed National Fraud Enforcement Division, which was established on April 7 to combat public fraud and support President Trump’s Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, chaired by Vice President J.D. Vance. Since 2007, the Department of Justice’s Health Care Fraud Strike Force Program has prosecuted over 6,200 people for collectively invoicing federal health care programs and commercial insurers for more than $45 billion.
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