A nurse from Marseille was sentenced, Wednesday April 17, to five years in prison, including three years suspended on probation, for having defrauded Social Security of more than 1.5 million euros, by invoicing tens of thousands of fictitious acts. . The firm part of his sentence, two years in prison, will be served at home under an electronic bracelet, ordered the court, which also imposed a fine of 30,000 euros.
Thanks to vital cards provided by accomplices and certificates issued to migrants, Maryse Mercier, 67, had invoiced 81,449 fictitious acts to thirty-four departmental health insurance funds between 2017 and 2020, causing total damage valued at 1,524,538 euros, a sum that the court ordered her to repay.
In severe expectations read by President Stéphanie Donjon, the Marseille judicial court sanctions “a large-scale scam”directed against “this precious good that is free health”and conducted using the accounts of some of the most vulnerable beneficiaries, holders of State Medical Aid (AME) and Supplementary Universal Health Coverage (CMU-C) – which since 2019 has become Solidarity Supplementary Health Insurance (CSS).
Ordered to repay the embezzled sums
The court confiscated eight properties acquired with the proceeds of the offense as well as sums seized from various accounts of his couple, amounting to around 115,000 euros. Her husband, who claimed to be unaware of the fraud committed by his wife – something the court said it did not believe – was sentenced to twelve months in prison for receiving stolen goods.
Qualified as“initiator of the scam”Maryse Mercier used the Vitale cards of 100% social security holders to obtain overpayment and, “to make people believe in the reality of the acts, she then sent false prescriptions, in reality gross forgeries”. The court noted that she had “expressed very little regret”noting that since the 2000s the liberal nurse had had problems with Social Security for overpayments, overbillings and fictitious acts which, at the time, only gave rise to administrative sanctions such as unconventionality.
During the debates held in March, Maryse Mercier claimed to have acted under the duress of co-defendants and henchmen, even mentioning a brief confinement and incessant nighttime calls. “Pressure yes, extortion no”ruled the president of the court.
Among the obligations of the probationary stay, the court set those of paying the fine, reimbursing the civil parties for the embezzled sums and also sentenced her to a definitive ban on practicing the nursing profession. She will also have to pay 3,000 euros in damages to the National Council of the Order of Nurses in compensation for her moral damage.
Two of his accomplices, responsible for collecting Social Security documents, were sentenced to three years in prison, two years of which were suspended.