Former legislative webcaster, Howard DeLaCruz-Bancroft of NMGOV.TV revealed that Tomas Gabaldon is out on federal bond for Medicaid fraud & corruption while working at Albuquerque Public Schools in the very same department for which he was arrested, charged and is currently under federal indictment.
Mr. Gabaldon is currently listed as the Special Projects Director, under Lynn Padraza, the Health & Wellness Department that handles Medicaid operations at APS. Mr. DeLaCruz-Bancroft, submitted an IPRA (Inspection of Public Records Act) request on April 25th, 2011 after learning in a 4/14/11 conversation with APS board member Dave Robbins that Tomas Gabaldon was working with Medicaid.
Mr. DeLaCruz-Bancroft had been working with Dave Robbins to have the APS Medicaid department audited when several anomalies were noticed. Mr. DeLaCruz-Bancroft said, "After being blocked for over a year and a half by Lynn Padraza into Medicaid operations, I found out that it was the same Tomas Gabaldon involved with the recent 2009 conviction of Sal Mena, former El Paso Public Schools superintendent involving Medicaid corruption issues."
Mr. DeLaCruz-Bancroft made several tweets using his twitter.com/nmgovtv account and his facebook page back in April 14th, 2011 giving the outlines for the story while investigating the
details. Mr. DeLaCruz-Bancroft points to a bigger picture that involves a recent report by New Mexico Secretary of Education, Hannah Skandera's concerning audits of NM schools.
"This is connected to a more complex story of Gabaldon's involvement with many of the schools in New Mexico. Secretary Skandera pointed out that Las Cruces Public Schools was considered the biggest culprit for inflating Special Education student totals that affect Medicaid reimbursements." Mr. DeLaCruz-Bancroft said. He also added that Debi Rounds, wife of Stan Rounds, superintendent for Las Cruces Public Schools worked for Tomas Gabaldon & Mecca Tech's (a Medicaid billing company) former CEO, Gary Lange, who was convicted on Medicaid fraud & corruption in the same case involving Tomas Gabaldon in 2009.
Many of the same schools involved with Secretary Skandera's audit have used Mr. Gabaldon as a Medicaid consultant and Mr. DeLaCruz-Bancroft said this problem may be linked to a law suit of 12 schools against the State of NM because of bad advice given by Mecca Tech & Tomas Gabaldon in 2002 that resulted in hundreds of thousands public school dollars having to be returned to the State.
Mr. DeLaCruz-Bancroft contends that Mecca Tech and Tomas Gabaldon systematically fleeced NM schools while forcing out other Medicaid billing providers from doing business in NM. "Mr. Gabaldon had some key people in the legislature who helped grease the wheels for him keep NM schools as his clients. I hope eventually these connections will be revealed and known to voters. I first submitted my evidence to the FBI back in 2003 and again to the US Attorney's office in El Paso in 2009", Mr. DeLaCruz-Bancroft stated. One of the counts of the indictment says "Deprivation of Honest Services" I think that helps explain the issue.
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