Conservative filmmaker James O’Keefe released the third installment in his Medicaid fraud video investigation Wednesday. The new footage shows a government employee in New York City assisting a fictitiously named man, “Mario,” with a Medicaid application.
In the video, the man said he’s an out-of-work plumber who has “some stuff” he does “on the side.” Mario begins explaining to the Medicaid worker in New York that he sells “mushrooms.”
“I don’t want to raise any red flags in terms of what I’m doing,” Mario said. “I don’t know how to put it down exactly.”
The Medicaid worker interrupts Mario. “Don’t, don’t tell me nothing,” the worker said. “I don’t want to know nothing.” (Second O’Keefe Medicaid video shows workers in SC, NC helping ‘IRA’)
Mario then said he didn’t want “tax people or the police getting anything.” The Medicaid worker replies to Mario’s concern by saying: “They’ll just take your word.”
Mario went on to say his “girlfriend,” named “Peach,” is pregnant and asked if she’d be able to get Medicaid as well. Mario said Peach is an exotic dancer, and does not report her income because she only makes cash.
Another Medicaid worker in what appears to be the same New York office, this time a woman, tells Mario that Peach would “need a letter from her job stating what she makes.”
“We definitely going to need that, okay?,” the woman in the Medicaid office told Mario. “We got to show that somebody was doing some kind of work somewhere, okay? Is she still dancing?” (First Medicaid sting: Fake Russian drug dealers pimp out underage sisters, get advice on Medicaid)
Mario replied that Peach still dances. “She can get a letter from them stating she gets paid such and such and such,” the Medicaid worker then said. “It’s cash, whatever. But, she’s got to have that letter, okay?”
O’Keefe told The Daily Caller the full unedited footage from Mario’s encounters with each New York Medicaid worker is at the end of the video he released. He also said Mario did not obtain the names or personal information of the Medicaid employees. O’Keefe said the sting took place at 115 Chrystie Street, New York, N.Y. The Medicaid office is on the fifth floor there.
