A federal judge has again delayed the trial of three local men who are charged with defrauding Medicaid out of millions of dollars between 2009 and 2015.

Matthew “Ty” Barrus, Greg Bennett and Devin Dutson are now set to be tried in February. Barrus, Bennett and Dutson face multiple felony charges in connection with their roles at the former Northwest Wyoming Treatment Center in Powell, which provided substance abuse treatment to teenagers.

In an indictment obtained back in September 2019, federal prosecutors allege the men made false statements to Medicaid and received payment for services that didn’t qualify as substance abuse treatment. An assistant U.S. attorney recently asserted it was a “bill-all-day-every-day fraud,” alleging the Powell-based nonprofit submitted bills for some patient activities that Medicaid does not cover as treatment — such as sleeping, eating and playing video games.

Barrus, who served as Northwest Wyoming Treatment Center’s executive director, Bennett, the clinical director, and Dutson, a counselor, have all denied the allegations. They have not publicly spoken about the case, but attorney Terry Harris, who represents Barrus, said in February that “we are quite confident that our clients will be found not guilty following any fair trial that takes place.”

A trial was originally set for June 2020, but was pushed back to June 1, 2021, and then to Nov. 1, largely due to concerns about COVID-19. In a ruling earlier this month, U.S. District Court Alan Johnson pushed the trial’s start date back to Feb. 22.

Earlier this year, Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Heimann had objected to the trial being pushed back to the fall, saying they could still prepare amid the pandemic and that a delay would cause witnesses’ memories and availability to fade. However, Heimann and Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Travis Kirchhefer asked for a further continuance earlier this month. The request came largely because Heimann has been busy preparing for an unrelated, multi-defendant securities fraud trial that’s set for September.

Last winter, the prosecutors said the securities case wouldn’t disrupt their ability to try Dutson, Bennett and Barrus in November, but “we were wrong,” Heimann and Kirchhefer wrote this month.

“… trial preparations in each case are taking more time than originally expected,” the prosecutors wrote.

For instance, they said the defense team in the Northwest Wyoming Treatment Center case recently requested additional materials — many related to the earlier investigation and prosecution of the center’s founder, Gib Condie. Condie pleaded guilty to one count of health care fraud in late 2017 and served more than two-and-a-half years in prison; federal prosecutors said he had submitted fraudulent bills to Medicaid in connection with his separate, for-profit business, Big Horn Basin Mental Health Group.

In addition to needing to gather information about Condie’s case, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said it’s already spent “countless hours” organizing hundreds of pages of progress notes and supervision sheets from the Northwest Wyoming Treatment Center — and that’s on top of the work for the upcoming and unrelated securities fraud case.

“Taken together, the current pace of preparations for the two scheduled trials is unsustainable and regardless, additional time will be needed to resolve discovery issues and reach evidentiary stipulation,” Heimann and Kirchhefer wrote.

Attorneys for Barrus, Bennett and Dutson did not object to the government’s request for a delay.

Harris, the attorney representing Barrus, supported a continuance, noting the “massive amount” of information the government has turned over to the defense. He said that includes some 151,281 pages of documents and spreadsheets, hours of recorded interviews, grand jury transcripts and other materials. Many of the documents do not contain searchable text, Harris wrote in a filing, saying that to describe the review process as cumbersome “would be a gross understatement.”

Further, “COVID-19 has severely limited all defendants’ trial preparation,” Harris wrote.

He noted most of the state’s residents remain unvaccinated, “mostly for reasons nearly incomprehensible to [him]” and said he didn’t think there was “any real reason for much optimism” with the course of the pandemic, either. 

COVID-19-related challenges were the primary reasons that presiding Judge Johnson pushed back the first two trial dates, but he didn’t mention the novel coronavirus in the latest delay. Rather, Johnson noted that Heimann is tied up with the securities case and that the prosecution and defense need more time to work out evidentiary stipulations and potential discovery issues.

“The government has demonstrated that the ends of justice will be served by granting a reasonable continuance …,” Johnson wrote on Aug. 19.

Earlier this year, the judge described the case against Bennett, Barrus and Dutson as both unusual and complex, saying he expects the trial to be lengthy and to potentially last more than three weeks. The trial will be held in U.S. District Court in Cheyenne.

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Medicaid fraud trial delayed until February – Powell Tribune