Social Service Agency Co-Founders Sentenced for Deadly Fraud Scheme

Social Service Agency Co-Founders Sentenced for Deadly Fraud Scheme

Two co-founders of MultiEthnic Behavioral Health Services, Inc. (“MEBH”), Mickal Kamuvaka and Solomon Manamela, were sentenced today for their roles in a fraud scheme connected to the death of 14-year-old Danieal Kelly. U.S. District Court Judge Stewart Dalzell sentenced Kamuvaka, 61, of Philadelphia, to 210 months in prison and sentenced Manamela, 52, also of Philadelphia, to 168 months. The two were convicted at trial in March along with MEBH workers Julius Juma Murray, and Mariam Coulibaly, who will both be sentenced tomorrow. From 2000 to 2006, the defendants committed fraud on the federal government and on the City of Philadelphia by knowingly filing false reports claiming to provide social services to at-risk children and their families, when few or no services were ever provided, and then billing the City for those services. Danieal Kelly’s family was among those that was supposed to receive services.