Rebecca Pargeon, the owner and operator of three medical debt collection businesses, pleaded guilty in federal court Monday to embezzling $555,558 from her companies' clients and failing to pay taxes on the ill-gotten gains, according to the Department of Justice.
Ms. Pargeon owned and operated Pargeon Medical Services, Kids First Pediatric Billing and Surgical Billing Solutions, which were all based in Springfield, Mo. Medical practitioners across the country hired her to collect payments owed to them by patients and insurance companies. From Jan. 11, 2012, to April 26, 2016, Ms. Pargeon fraudulently deposited funds she collected into her personal and business bank accounts. She admitted endorsing and depositing more than 740 checks made payable to her clients into her own accounts, according to the DOJ.
Ms. Pargeon also admitted that she did not report the embezzled income on her federal tax returns for 2012 through 2015.
Under the terms of her plea agreement with prosecutors, Ms. Pargeon must forfeit the proceeds of the fraud scheme and pay an additional $232,929, which is the amount she received in 2012 from her businesses and through the fraud scheme but failed to report on her tax return.
Ms. Pargeon faces up to 23 years in prison, according to the DOJ.
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