Sierra Leonean pharmacist in NJ convicted of Insurance fraud

New Jersey, USA – Victor Fakondo, a native of Sierra Leone, faces up to ten years in prison for insurance fraud.  A respected leader of the Sierra Leonean community and patriarch in an African church is facing up to 10 years in prison for insurance fraud.

Victor Fakondo, 53, a licensed pharmacist, pleaded guilty to the fraud charge this week as part of a deal with prosecutors and agreed to reimburse an insurance company more than $235,000, authorities said.

Fakondo has been credited by church members at Bethel United African Church in Franklin Township with building their congregation from just a handful of Sierra Leone natives who met in the basement of his townhouse in Edison to more than 100 worshippers.

But authorities said he was also pocketing insurance reimbursements for nonexistent prescriptions while working part time at an Elizabeth pharmacy between June 2008 and August 2009.

In 2009, Fakondo was charged with defrauding the insurance company of at least $237,000 by filing fraudulent claims and keeping the proceeds.

He submitted at least 290 false claims from the Margarita Pharmacy to the MedCo insurance company, according to Theodore Romankow, the Union County Prosecutor.

The fraud was discovered after MedCo called the pharmacy asking about a claim, authorities said. The pharmacy’s owner had no record of the claim in the computer system, and discovered the widespread fraud when he ran an audit of Fakondo’s transactions, according to the Prosecutor’s Office.

“There were pages and pages of fraudulent invoices created and submitted by Mr. Fakondo,” Romankow said.

Some of the claims were made out in the names of Fakondo’s wife and children, authorities said. They have not been charged with a crime.

Fakondo is expected to be sentenced on August 27 before Union County Superior Court Judge Stuart Peim.

Fakondo did not return a call for comment today. A father of four, he attended college at Kean University and was later a graduate student in pharmacy at Rutgers.

In a 2007 feature profile in the Star-Ledger, Fakondo, who arrived in the United States from Sierra Leone in 1981, said he was dedicated to helping fellow immigrants, and especially to his religion.

“From the word go, I was born in church,” he said. “The church is just me.”

Julie O’Connor, The Star-Ledger, New Jersey, USA

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