RICHMOND, Va. — A Richmond couple who ran a mental-health counselling agency have been sentenced to federal prison for conspiring to bill Virginia's Medicaid program for services that were never provided — a scheme involving nearly $1 million in improper billing, federal prosecutors said. Erica Jackson, 39, was sentenced to four years in prison and her husband Jason Jackson, 40, to six months, after sentencing by Senior U.S. District Judge John A. Gibney Jr. on November 10, 2026. The sentences were announced by Theophani K. Stamos, First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, and Ian Kaufmann, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI's Richmond Field Office. Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert S. Day prosecuted the case, which is filed as Case No. 3:26-cr-17.
Source: U.S. Attorney's Office, Eastern District of Virginia, via Townhall
The company: Live 4 Life, founded in 2012
According to court documents, Erica and Jason Jackson created Live 4 Life, Inc. in 2012, an agency that provided mental-health counselling services to Medicaid recipients under two Virginia programs: Mental Health Skill Building (MHSB) and Intensive In-Home Services (IIH). Erica Jackson was responsible for overseeing all day-to-day activities of the company, including compliance with relevant laws and regulations, staff training and clinical supervision. Jason Jackson was the sole person responsible for submitting claims to Medicaid — the division of roles that prosecutors say put the couple in control of both the supposed services and the bills sent for them.
Source: Court documents, via U.S. Attorney's Office EDVA release
How the billing scheme worked, according to prosecutors
Beginning in January 2019, Erica and Jason Jackson conspired with their employees to bill Medicaid for services that were never provided, court documents say. Erica directed Qualified Mental Health Professionals (QMHPs) to treat brief interactions with clients as one or more hours of MHSB or IIH services. She also directed QMHPs to bill for purported services provided to two or more clients at the same time, and Live 4 Life routinely double-billed for IIH clients who were siblings by claiming to provide the siblings' mental-health services simultaneously. QMHPs also routinely submitted MHSB progress notes with overlapping times, falsely claiming to have provided services to two clients in locations miles apart during the same time period.
Source: U.S. Attorney's Office EDVA, via Townhall
The couple then compounded the fraud, prosecutors said, by billing Medicaid for additional hours on top of the fraudulent hours the QMHPs submitted — hours for services that were never rendered at all. The overall scheme involved nearly $1 million in improper Medicaid billing, according to the reporting of the Justice Department's announcement.
Source: The Realist Juggernaut, reporting the Justice Department announcement
Where the money went
Erica and Jason Jackson used the fraudulent proceeds to purchase luxury cars, including a Maserati GranTurismo and a BMW 750Li; to invest capital into other business ventures Jason operated, such as two failed vegan restaurants; and to make over $120,000 in lease payments for their Richmond residence, prosecutors said. Those details, drawn from court documents, are the government's account of how Medicaid money meant for mental-health clients was spent instead.
Source: Court documents, via U.S. Attorney's Office EDVA release
Both sentences are federal. There is no parole in the U.S. federal prison system, so the four years imposed on Erica Jackson and the six months imposed on Jason Jackson are terms to be served under federal rules, subject only to the limited good-time credit federal law allows. The announcements summarized here did not publish a restitution or forfeiture figure.
The enforcement backdrop
The U.S. Attorney's office said the case is part of the administration's Task Force to Eliminate Fraud. On April 7, the Department of Justice announced the creation of a National Fraud Enforcement Division focused on investigating and prosecuting fraud against the public, and the Richmond case was prosecuted within that broader federal push against fraud, waste and abuse in government benefit programs. Medicaid is jointly funded by federal and state governments and pays for health care for low-income residents — in Virginia, including the community mental-health services MHSB and IIH are meant to deliver to people, many of them children and families, in their homes and communities.
Why the gap between the two sentences
The announcements do not explain the court's reasoning for the difference between Erica Jackson's four years and Jason Jackson's six months, and Awaaz Punjab will not guess at it. What the record described by prosecutors does show is a division of roles: Erica ran the agency day to day — compliance, training and clinical supervision — and, on the government's account, directed the professionals who generated the false hours, while Jason's named role was submitting the claims. Sentencing in federal court is imposed by the judge on the full record of each defendant's plea and conduct; the detailed reasoning would be in the sentencing record in Case No. 3:26-cr-17, available through the Eastern District of Virginia court and PACER.
What happens next
Both Jacksons now face surrendering to serve their federal terms — four years for Erica, six months for Jason — on the schedule the court sets. The case record remains public as Case No. 3:26-cr-17 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Federal fraud enforcement against health-care billing continues under the task force the prosecutors cited, and any further defendants or related cases arising from the Live 4 Life investigation would be announced by the same U.S. Attorney's office. Awaaz Punjab will update this report if the court record adds a restitution figure or further sentencings in the case.