10 November 2026 · Guilty plea, not a sentence

Daniel Lee admits a $127 million Medicare and Medicaid scheme

Daniel Lee, 57, of Flushing, pleaded guilty on Monday 9 November 2026. The Justice Department says the bills were for prescription drugs and social adult day care that were not provided.

Lee was a program director at two Flushing social adult day care centers: Happy Life Inc., and Z&W Empire Enterprise, Inc., doing business as Royal Adult Day Care Center. Over about ten years, those centers paid illegal cash kickbacks and bribes to Medicaid recipients to induce them to enroll, and billed Medicaid for services that were never provided.

Some of those day-care claims were submitted when the recipients could not possibly have received the services, because they were hospitalized at the time. Over the same period, Lee and his co-conspirators paid kickbacks and bribes to Medicare beneficiaries and Medicaid recipients at a related pharmacy that billed for medically unnecessary prescription drugs.

When law enforcement searched Happy Life, they recovered over $100,000 in cash. They also seized about $900,000 in fraud proceeds held in bank accounts.

What he admitted, and what is still ahead

Lee pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit health care fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. He is scheduled to be sentenced on 2 March 2027. The maximum penalty is 30 years in prison. A federal district judge will set any sentence after considering the sentencing guidelines and the other statutory factors.

The 10 November release does not announce a guilty plea by anyone else. It says HHS-OIG, the FBI, IRS Criminal Investigation, and OSC are investigating. Deputy Chief Patrick J. Campbell of the Fraud Division’s Health Care Fraud Section is prosecuting the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Claire Kedeshian for the Eastern District of New York is assisting with forfeiture.

What they said

“For over a decade, Daniel Lee helped run a brazen kickback scheme that stole from Medicare and Medicaid through fraudulent claims for medically unnecessary prescription drugs and social adult day care services that were never provided.”

“Yesterday’s guilty plea marks the end of the defendant’s long running and staggering fraud against the Medicare and Medicaid programs.”

“Paying kickbacks and billing for services that were never provided is not patient care. It is theft from programs that vulnerable people depend on.”

The Justice Department page has no photograph of Happy Life, Royal, the search, or the cash. The three pictures on this page are the Brooklyn courthouse only. Shop photographs from Flushing were not used, because those storefronts are other businesses.