Elizabeth Guetersloh, 67, of Hillsboro has been sentenced to 15 months in prison and ordered to repay $423,513 for her role in a disability and health care fraud scheme involving the Power-Med Inc. chiropractic firm in Arnold and former Anheuser-Busch employees, the U.S. District Attorney’s Office announced.
U.S. District Judge Sarah E. Pitlyk sentenced Guetersloh on Dec. 15 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri. A jury on May 16 found Guetersloh guilty of two counts of mail fraud, 16 counts of wire fraud and eight counts of theft of government funds, court records show.
Guetersloh and other former Anheuser-Busch employees were part of a scheme involving Power-Med Inc. that bilked more than $3.5 million in disability payments from the Social Security Administration and private disability benefit insurers, the U.S. Attorney’s Office reported.
“These defendants schemed to take advantage of a system intended to support those who become too disabled to work,” the U.S. District Attorney’s Office said in a written statement. “The chiropractors took thousands of dollars in fees to teach the other defendants how to fake medical conditions and pretend they were unable to perform some of the basic necessities of life, like walking, standing, sitting and lifting objects.
“Evidence at her trial showed that this defendant, Elizabeth Guetersloh, fraudulently filed for disability payments and then danced, hiked through waterfalls, rode roller coasters, went to wineries, and traveled to Europe, Hawaii and the Caribbean. Each defendant has been ordered to repay all of the money that was lost, which should serve as an important message that you will never come out ahead if you attempt to commit fraud.”
Chiropractors Thomas G. Hobbs and Vivian Carbone-Hobbs, co-owners of Power-Med, were each sentenced to four years in prison earlier this year. Hobbs was ordered to repay $4.3 million, and Carbone-Hobbs was ordered to repay $16.4 million, according to court documents.
Hobbs, 66, pleaded guilty in January to a conspiracy charge and admitted to committing health care and Social Security fraud, making false statements and stealing government funds. Carbone-Hobbs, 61, was convicted by a jury in February of conspiracy to defraud the Social Security Administration, 10 counts of health care fraud and two counts of theft of money from the United States, court records show.
A jury also found Power-Med employees Clarissa Pogue of De Soto and Christina Barrera of St. Louis guilty on Feb. 8 of conspiring to commit disability fraud after a seven-day jury trial, according to court documents.
Pogue was placed on five years’ probation on Aug. 17, and Barrera is appealing a 14-month prison sentence and an order to repay $543,315.42, court records show.
Others indicted in the scheme include former AB InBev union representative James Ralston and patients Glenda Johnson, Sheila Huffman, Shannon Nenninger and Gary Walesky, the report said.
Ralston pleaded guilty, and on March 5, was placed on five years’ probation and ordered to repay $2,250,496.46, according to court records.
Johnson, Huffman and Walesky were each placed on five years’ probation and ordered to pay restitution after each pleaded guilty. Johnson was ordered to repay $362,527.68, Huffman must repay $100,887.20 and Walesky was ordered to repay $324,776.56, court documents said.
Nenninger pleaded guilty in October 2022, and in January 2022, was sentenced to a year and one day in prison and ordered to repay more than $466,000, court records said.
“This sentence holds Ms. Elizabeth Guetersloh accountable for her criminal actions and concludes a major case that involved several medical professionals and many other defendants who conspired to defraud SSA’s disability program and private insurers,” said Gail S. Ennis, inspector general for the Social Security Administration. “I applaud the efforts of those who uncovered this fraud and the investigators who tirelessly unraveled this scheme.
“I also commend assistant U.S. attorneys Tracy Berry, Dorothy McMurtry and Gwendolyn Carroll and special assistant U.S. attorney Diane Klocke who worked diligently to bring these cases to conclusion.”
When Carbone-Hobbs and Hobbs coached patients on how to pretend to be disabled, the patients paid them hundreds of dollars for annual appointments to keep qualifying for disability payments, the U.S. District Attorney’s Office reported.
Carbone-Hobbs also billed insurance companies for services that were not provided, according to the U.S. District Attorney’s Office.
Hobbs admitted that starting in 2011, he helped patients fraudulently receive disability benefit payments through the Social Security Administration’s Disability Trust Fund and through private disability benefit insurance providers. He charged patients between $2,000 and $8,600 to prepare disability forms, according to his plea agreement.
Hobbs also used a fictitious medical license number to bolster patients’ disability claims so his medical determinations would be given greater weight than those from medical experts who evaluated claims on behalf of the Social Security Administration and private disability benefit insurers. He also submitted false and fraudulent medical reports to give the appearance that he had a long history with the patients, according to the plea.
The Social Security Administration Office of Inspector General and the FBI investigated the cases.
Anyone who suspects fraud involving the Disability Insurance Benefit Program is asked to contact the Social Security Administration Office of Inspector General Hotline at 1-800-269-0271 or file a report through the website oig.ssa.gov/report.