Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois paid more than $4.8 million to a suburban Chicago counseling center for psychotherapy that federal prosecutors say never took place. A grand jury has indicted six people on health care fraud charges. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois says the group submitted at least $19 million in claims over 15 years, and an indictment is not evidence of guilt.
Six defendants and a counseling center in the south suburbs
The business at the center of the case is All Types Counseling Services, which had offices in Chicago’s southwest suburbs. Prosecutors say Brenda Copeland, 64, of Country Club Hills, operated it. Samuel Carlson, 69, of the same town, was its office manager.
Four others are charged alongside them: Herbert “Randy” Foster, 59, of Flossmoor; Joseph Iraci, 51, of New Lenox; Anthony Gessert, 42, of Oak Lawn; and Henry Saldarriaga-Ochoa, 37, of Berwyn. The release does not describe what role each of those four played. All six face counts of health care fraud and conspiracy to commit health care fraud.
How prosecutors say the payments worked
The indictment describes a scheme built on people who were not really patients. Prosecutors say the alleged conduct ran from 2010 through 2025. Copeland and Carlson worked with four purported patients, who handed over their health insurance information. Copeland and Carlson then allegedly billed Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois for psychotherapy sessions that never happened.
When the insurer paid All Types, prosecutors say, Copeland and Carlson passed a portion of the money back to the purported patients. Those people in turn allegedly recruited others to pose as patients, and the recruits received similar payments.
For anyone covered by the insurer, the practical question is whether a counseling visit on a claims statement really took place. Insurers list each paid claim on an explanation of benefits, and the FBI advises people to contact their health insurer, which usually runs a toll-free fraud line, about charges that look wrong.
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What the $19 million and $4.8 million figures measure
The two dollar figures in the release measure different things. The $19 million is what prosecutors say the defendants submitted or caused to be submitted in fraudulent claims. The $4.8 million is what Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois paid All Types, which is roughly a quarter of the amount billed.
The release does not explain the gap between them, and it does not break the totals down by defendant or by year. It also does not say whether any money has been recovered. The indictment, which the U.S. Attorney’s Office links in the release under the name Copeland et al., is the document that would carry those details.
The indictment was returned on Monday and announced on Wednesday, October 21. Each type of charge carries a maximum of ten years in federal prison, and arraignments have not been scheduled. The defendants are presumed innocent and are entitled to a trial at which the government must prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
Andrew S. Boutros, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, announced the indictment with Ryan Whalen, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Chicago field office. Two Labor Department units also took part: the Office of Inspector General, led by Anthony P. D’Esposito, and the Employee Benefits Security Administration’s Chicago regional office, directed by Kelli Hammerl. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kristin Pinkston is prosecuting.
The FBI describes other ways these schemes recruit participants: offering cash or gifts to lure people into clinics where their identities are captured, collecting insurance data at free health fairs, and paying insiders who have access to insurance records. Nothing in the release says All Types used those methods. The paid-participant arrangement alleged here is a variation on the same idea, in which the insurance credentials come from people who are compensated for supplying them.
Several basic facts remain unannounced. The release does not say whether any defendant is in custody, which counts apply to which defendant, or when a trial could begin. Those details usually emerge at arraignment, when each defendant enters a plea in federal court in Chicago.
The case lands in the same week as a much larger federal announcement. On Thursday, October 22, prosecutors in Los Angeles charged 15 defendants in a takedown they say involved $2 billion in fraudulent claims. That case centers on Medicare and Medi-Cal, while this one involves a private insurer, and the prosecuting office, agencies and defendants are all different.
The Illinois indictment is smaller in dollars but long in duration. Prosecutors say the alleged scheme ran 15 years and that recruits who posed as patients were paid a share of what the insurer sent to All Types. The release does not say how the billing was first detected.
The release calls the insurer a private one and does not say whether the payments came from individual policies or employer-sponsored plans. The Labor Department’s inspector general takes fraud reports on its hotline at 800-347-3756. The FBI says health care fraud costs the country tens of billions of dollars a year.
Do the counseling visits on an insurer statement all exist?
Prosecutors say the visits in this case never happened.
Insurance fraud like this is billed to someone else’s coverage, but it still lands on household budgets through the claims paperwork and the bills families have to sort out. A single unexplained charge on an explanation of benefits is easy to skip, and the benefits that could offset real medical and household costs usually require an application.
This is an insurer-fraud story, and The Benefits Checklist is not a fraud tool. It covers the related money job: a scan of 11 benefit programs retirees most often miss, the 2026 income limits and a 50-state phone directory, with a printable application tracker included in the download.
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This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
Warren Cohen is a finance writer based in Phoenix, Arizona, covering personal finance topics including credit, banking, and beginner investing. He earned his degree in business administration from Arizona State University and began his career working in consumer finance, where he gained direct experience with lending and credit systems. He now writes for personal finance websites and fintech platforms, focusing on clear, practical content that helps readers make informed financial decisions.
