Pasco business owner charged with defrauding state L&I for interpreter services

The owner of a Pasco-based business is accused of bilking a state agency out of more than $41,000 by submitting 558 fraudulent bills for Spanish-speaking interpreter services.

Carla C. Moreno, 33, allegedly ran the “complex scheme” to overbill the Washington state Department of Labor & Industries from for three years.

She was the sole owner of two businesses, “The Language Spot” and “Language Spot,” which hired independent contractors to interpret at medical and physical therapy appointments for injured workers who had filed L&I injury claims.

Moreno was a certified Spanish interpreter while operating her businesses out of a west Pasco home. She claimed to have handled some jobs herself by interpreting for workers at appointments.

The non-certified interpreters recruited by Moreno included “friends of friends, friends of family, or women she had met while working for other interpreting agencies,” court documents said.

One of the interpreters was her partner/wife.

She then submitted appointment records for language interpretation services so the state agency could track and verify work performed and pay the bills. In return, Moreno was responsible for paying her contractors when the money hit her business account.

However, L&I officials say that at the same time Moreno said she was working in the Tri-Cities, she actually was living in Seattle and attending classes at the University of Washington.

And in most cases where she gave the name and provider number of another certified interpreter to receive payment, she really was using uncertified interpreters or billing for appointments that never happened from 2014 to 2017, according to the agency.

The state only pays for certified interpreters who meet certain standards and pass proficiency exams. Their services may include scheduling appointments for injured workers through the provider’s office and attending the appointments with them.

Moreno allegedly forged the signatures of certified interpreters and healthcare providers on the billing forms that she submitted.

The interpreters and providers “had no idea what she was doing,” said L&I.

“This was a brazen scheme to steal tens of thousands of dollars that should have gone to help injured workers,” Chris Bowe, assistant director of L&I’s Fraud Prevention and Labor Standards division, said in a news release. “Besides filing phony claims, the defendant is accused of allowing unqualified people to interpret at patients’ appointments. That’s just not right.”

“Interpreters play a crucial role in making sure doctors, service providers, and injured workers with limited-English proficiency understand each other so the worker can recover,” Bowe added.

State investigation

Moreno stopped billing the state agency in fall 2017.

She reportedly declined a request, through her attorney, to meet with an L&I investigator.

Moreno was charged in October by the Washington state Attorney General’s Office following a 2 1/2-year investigation that started when L&I staff noticed discrepancies in her billing.

She also uses the aliases Carla Cynthia Montes de Oca Moreno and Carla Moreno Montgomery.

Moreno is scheduled to appear Dec. 8 in Franklin County Superior Court on one count each of first-degree theft and first-degree identity theft.

She already was being watched by the state after the Department of Labor & Industries had to recoup $6,934 from The Language Spot in 2014 due to inappropriate billing.

Moreno at the time was reminded of proper billing practices, court document state.

She made money, as is customary in the industry, by paying interpreters less than what private and public customers paid for language interpretation services, documents said.

By 2015, L&I was paying interpreter agencies $49.20 an hour, in addition to mileage. Moreno paid interpreters about $25 to $28 per hour, along with mileage.

During the later audit of Moreno’s business practices, investigator Samuel Nichols and auditor Tara Brink interviewed dozens of certified and uncertified interpreters and healthcare clinic employees, and reviewed bank records and billing forms from a four-month period in 2015.

One certified interpreter was shown 60 billing forms with his name and provider number and told investigators he had stopped working for Moreno at least one year before the dates on the paperwork, according to the state agency.

The interpreter also said he did not complete or sign the documents after he ended their business contract.

Nichols and Brink also found 89 times when Moreno submitted bills for “phantom appointments.”

Those include appointments that Moreno said she handled personally when she was living across the state.

The review also turned up paperwork showing interpreter names had been clearly been “whited out” and changed, names did not match the name on appointment records, and the agency was double billed for the same appointment.

Investigators say Moreno was charged with identity theft because she applied for new provider numbers on behalf of certified interpreters who were not working for her. She then forged their signatures on applications and to bill L&I, prosecutors allege.

Three of the interpreters did not work for Moreno when she applied for the numbers, said the state.

This story was originally published December 2, 2020 at 5:00 AM.