KANSAS CITY (AP) — Kansas City Chiefs offensive lineman Ryan Hunter has tackled the halls of government.

As part of the NFL Players’ Association’s Externship program, the pre-law graduate from Bowling Green State University worked for Republican Sen. Josh Hawley, of Missouri. He focused in part on helping improve rural internet access.

The Players’ Association promotes the externship program online as the “premier opportunity for NFL players to gain valuable experience with top organizations across the country.” Participants work in both political and business settings for several weeks in February and March.

Hunter entered the NFL as an undrafted free agent with the Chiefs in 2018. He didn’t appear for the team last season.

ST. LOUIS (AP) — A Mexican national accused of killing four people in Kansas and one in Missouri in 2016 died Tuesday after being found hanging from a light fixture in his St. Louis jail cell.

Pablo Serrano-Vitorino was found alone in his cell at 2:02 a.m. He was pronounced dead at a hospital about an hour later, said Koran Addo, spokesman for St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson.

Addo declined further comment but St. Louis Public Safety Director Jimmie Edwards said that Serrano-Vitorino hanged himself and left a note written in Spanish. Edwards was out of town and didn’t know if Serrano-Vitorino was on suicide watch or when jailers had last checked on him.

Serrano-Vitorino, 43, who was in the U.S. illegally, was accused of fatally shooting four men at a home in Kansas City, Kansas, on the night of March 7, 2016. He was arrested a day later and 170 miles away in Montgomery County, Missouri, where he was accused of killing Randy Nordman of New Florence. He was charged with first-degree murder in all five deaths.

He was being held in St. Louis awaiting an October trial in Nordman’s death on a change of venue. Missouri prosecutors were seeking the death penalty.

He had tried to take his own life before, with a safety razor, shortly after his arrest while jailed in Montgomery County. After a hospitalization he was returned to the jail.

Authorities say the shooting spree began when Serrano-Vitorino gunned down his Kansas City, Kansas, neighbor, 41-year-old Michael Capps, and three other men at Capps’ home — brothers Austin Harter, 29, and Clint Harter, 27, and 36-year-old Jeremy Waters. Before dying, one of the victims managed to call police.

Authorities have not disclosed a possible motive.

Serrano-Vitorino then allegedly fled in his pickup truck into Missouri. Authorities say he killed Nordman, 49, at Nordman’s rural home near Interstate 70 about 70 miles (113 kilometers) east of St. Louis. He was captured hiding face-down in a ditch a few miles from Nordman’s home, and had a rifle with him, the Missouri State Highway patrol said at the time.

A lawsuit filed in Kansas City, Kansas , by the father of one of the victims accused U.S. immigration officials of missing two chances to detain and deport Serrano-Vitorino.

Serrano-Vitorino was deported to Mexico after he was convicted of a felony in 2003 but illegally re-entered the U.S. He was arrested in 2014 and 2015.

After his 2014 arrest in Kansas for battery, Wyandotte County jail officials notified ICE he was in custody. But Serrano-Vitorino was released after the federal agency didn’t send an agent to the jail, according to the lawsuit.

Serrano-Vitorino was fingerprinted in Overland Park, Kansas, Municipal Court in September 2015 after he was cited for traffic infractions. ICE officials asked that he be held in custody but sent the paperwork to a different jail in Johnson County, Kansas, the lawsuit contends. He was once again released from custody.

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal authorities said Tuesday they’ve broken up a $1.2 billion Medicare scam that peddled unneeded orthopedic braces to hundreds of thousands of seniors via foreign call centers.

The Justice Department announced charges against 24 people across the U.S., including doctors accused of writing bogus prescriptions for unneeded back, shoulder, wrist and knee braces. Others charged included owners of call centers, telemedicine firms and medical equipment companies.

The Health and Human Services inspector general’s office said the fast-moving scam morphed into multiple related schemes, fueled by kickbacks among the parties involved. The FBI, the IRS, and 17 U.S. attorney’s offices took part in the crackdown. Arrests were made Tuesday morning.

Medicare’s anti-fraud unit said it’s taking action against 130 medical equipment companies implicated. They billed the program a total of $1.7 billion, of which more than $900 million was paid out.

Telemarketers would reach out to seniors offering “free” orthopedic braces, also touted through television and radio ads. Beneficiaries who expressed interest would be patched through to call centers involved in the scheme. Officials described an “international telemarketing network” with call centers in the Philippines and throughout Latin America.

The call centers would verify seniors’ Medicare coverage and transfer them to telemedicine companies for consultations with doctors.

“The telemedicine we are talking about is basically a tele-scam,” said Gary Cantrell, who oversees fraud investigations for the HHS inspector general’s office. “We are not talking about the use of advanced technology to provide better access to care.”

The doctors would write prescriptions for orthopedic braces, regardless of whether the patients needed them or not. In some cases several braces were prescribed for the same patient.

The call centers would collect prescriptions and sell them to medical equipment companies, which would ship the braces to beneficiaries and bill Medicare. Medical equipment companies would get $500 to $900 per brace from Medicare and would pay kickbacks of nearly $300 per brace.

The scam was detected last summer, officials said. Complaints from beneficiaries were pouring in to the Medicare fraud hotline, and some consumer news organizations warned seniors. As the investigation progressed, Cantrell said, federal agents gained cooperation from people familiar with the various schemes.

Officials said it’s one of the biggest frauds the inspector general’s office has seen. Charges were being brought against defendants in California, Florida, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Texas.

“The breadth of this nationwide conspiracy should be frightening to all who rely on some form of health care,” IRS criminal investigations chief Don Fort said in a statement. “The conspiracy…details broad corruption, massive amounts of greed and systemic flaws in our health care system that were exploited by the defendants.”

Health care fraud is a pervasive problem that costs taxpayers tens of billions of dollars a year. The true extent of it is unknown, and some cases involve gray areas of complex payment policies.

Experts say part of the problem is that Medicare is required to pay medical bills promptly, which means money often goes out before potential frauds get flagged. Investigators call that “pay and chase.”

In recent years, Medicare has tried to adapt techniques used by credit card companies to head off fraud. Law enforcement coordination has grown, with strike forces of federal prosecutors and agents, along with state counterparts, specializing in health care investigations.

The Medicare beneficiaries drawn into the orthopedic braces scam didn’t have to pay anything up front, but Cantrell said they have been harmed as well: A beneficiary’s private information, once in the hands of fraudsters, can be resold for many illegal purposes.

Additionally, if a beneficiary whose information was misused ever does need an orthopedic brace, he or she may encounter waiting periods from Medicare. The program limits how often it pays for certain supplies and equipment.

“It can be very attractive to receive equipment,” Cantrell said. “But after giving out your identifying information, it could be compromised to perpetuate additional fraud. There is no fraud without the ID number of a Medicare beneficiary.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — Outside allies of President Donald Trump have launched a public campaign urging him to nominate former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach as his next secretary of Homeland Security.

That’s despite the uphill battle Kobach would likely face getting confirmed by the Senate.

NumbersUSA, a group that seeks to reduce immigration rates, released a statement Tuesday saying there is “no one more qualified” for the job and claiming Kobach has the support of Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials.

They’re also rallying to defend Lee Francis Cissna, the director of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, whose job is said to be in danger.

Kobach did not response to a request for comment Tuesday morning.

The White House declined to comment on the push.

By JOHN HANNA

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A legislative fight over expanding Medicaid in Kansas is delaying approval of the state’s next annual budget as expansion supporters try to keep Republican opponents from blocking it for another year.

Some top GOP lawmakers are conceding that an expansion plan could pass because expansion is a priority for Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly and has bipartisan support in the Republican-controlled Legislature. However, opponents hope for time this summer and fall to develop a smaller program than Kelly wants with restrictions she opposes, such as a work requirement for participants.

 

THANK YOU to all supporters of KanCare expansion who stood up and spoke out at the Capitol today! We can’t do this without you. #ksleg #ExpandKanCare pic.twitter.com/byGW6dM8dA

— Expand KanCare Now! (@ExpandKanCare) March 19, 2019

Expansion became a sticking point in budget negotiations between the House and Senate, causing lawmakers to put off votes until May on any part of the state’s spending blueprint for the fiscal year beginning in July. Potential expansion costs are hotly debated, but the disagreement in budget talks is over how much to tie Kelly’s hands as she pursues expansion this year.

“We have a Democrat governor,” Senate Majority Leader Jim Denning, a conservative Kansas City-area Republican. “There will be a time when we won’t be able to maneuver around it.”

Supporters argue that Medicaid expansion will benefit working-class families, help struggling rural hospitals and boost the economy with an influx of federal funds. Opponents predict expansion will prove far more expensive than advertised, even with the 2010 federal Affordable Care Act’s promise that the federal government would cover 90 percent of the cost.

Thirty-six states, including GOP-led ones, have expanded Medicaid or have seen voters approve ballot initiatives.

In Kansas, Republicans who oppose expansion still hold key positions in both chambers and prevented even a committee vote for weeks. However, supporters forced a debate in the House last month, and it passed a modified version of Kelly’s expansion plan over GOP leaders’ objections.

The Senate didn’t take up the measure before lawmakers began their annual spring break Saturday. However, Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, a Topeka Democrat, notified colleagues that he will try to pull it out of committee May 1, when legislators reconvene to wrap up business for the year.

In arguing for further delay, GOP leaders note that Republican-led Utah is pursuing a scaled-back version of an expansion approved by voters last year to control the potential costs.

Kelly’s administration projects that her plan to extend Medicaid health coverage to as many as 150,000 more Kansas residents would come with a net cost of the state of $34 million in the program’s first full year. Top Republicans are skeptical and believe the net cost easily could be twice as much.

They also want Kansas to consider work requirements, though a federal judge blocked them in Arkansas and Kentucky. Republicans also have suggested drug testing for people receiving the expanded Medicaid coverage. Kelly opposes both ideas, but it’s not clear what she would do if either was included in expansion legislation.

GOP leaders announced plans last week to have a committee study possible alternatives to Kelly’s plan this summer and fall.

“We’re going to do it on our own schedule,” Denning said.

To help build pressure for Medicaid expansion, Kelly is having a town hall meeting Tuesday in Wichita, and Lt. Gov. Lynn Rogers is touring western Kansas hospitals.

“We’ve studied this for multiple years,” Rogers said Monday. “When they (Republican leaders) say we need more discussion, it’s on them. It’s not on the Kansas people.”

Legislators initially planned to pass a bill containing most of the next state budget before the spring break, to make finishing their work in May easier.

However, the budget talks stalled last week. Medicaid expansion was among a few remaining issues in reconciling differences between the House and Senate versions of the spending blueprint.

Neither chamber included funds to cover expansion costs, but Denning persuaded senators to add an amendment to their version to prevent the state from spending any dollars on expansion paperwork.

A 2014 law already requires prior legislative approval for expansion, but Denning said he wants to ensure that putting funding in the budget isn’t interpreted as a go-ahead for a specific plan.

House negotiators balked, with even expansion foes seeing the provision as overkill. The dispute — and resulting budget impasse — gives expansion supporters extra unexpected political leverage.

“That amendment could have caused us problems for passing expansion,” said state Rep. Kathy Wolfe Moore, a budget negotiator and Kansas City Democrat who supports expansion. “As long as that was in there, anyone who voted for expansion would not vote for the budget.”

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – A Missouri man has pleaded guilty in federal court to his role in a conspiracy that distributed 45 kilograms of methamphetamine in southwest Missouri.

Kenneth R. Friend, 48, of Springfield, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge M. Douglas Harpool on Friday, April 5, to participating in the conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine in Greene, Polk, Christian, Jasper, Laclede, and Webster Counties from June 1, 2013, through Nov. 29, 2014. Friend also pleaded guilty to money laundering by engaging in monetary transactions to promote unlawful activity.

Beginning in 2012, the Drug Enforcement Administration, assisted by other agencies, investigated one of the largest methamphetamine distribution rings in southwest Missouri. The investigation resulted in the indictment of 29 defendants.

The conspiracy was responsible for the distribution of more than 45 kilograms of methamphetamine.

During the conspiracy, Friend obtained large amounts of methamphetamine from various sources. For example, Friend paid one source $20,000 in early November 2014 for two pounds of methamphetamine. Friend also intended to purchase a large amount of methamphetamine from one of his sources on Nov. 27, 2014. As part of the investigation, law enforcement officers arrested Friend, his then-girlfriend and one of his suppliers. During the execution of a federal search warrant at the supplier’s residence in Springfield, agents found approximately $20,000 and approximately five and a half pounds of methamphetamine. Friend admitted that he intended to purchase at least two of the five and a half pounds seized from this source of supply. Agents also seized $34,310 from Friend, which he had intended to use to purchase the two pounds of methamphetamine. Agents also seized Friend’s 1992 Harley Davidson motorcycle, which he used to distribute methamphetamine and which he purchased with proceeds from the sale of methamphetamine. Under the terms of the plea agreement, Friend must forfeit the cash and the motorcycle to the government.

Friend is among 29 defendants who have pleaded guilty in this case; 27 of those defendants have been sentenced.

Under federal statutes, Friend is subject to a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in federal prison without parole, up to a sentence of life in federal prison without parole. The maximum statutory sentence is prescribed by Congress and is provided here for informational purposes, as the sentencing of the defendant will be determined by the court based on the advisory sentencing guidelines and other statutory factors. A sentencing hearing will be scheduled after the completion of a presentence investigation by the United States Probation Office.