Georgia man sentenced to 52 months for concealing ownership of an Arizona behavioral health scheme
Kenneth Terrell Harrison, of College Park, Georgia, secretly owned Aurtism LLC, an outpatient behavioral health counseling business in Mesa, Arizona, after concealing his ownership interest when applying to become an AHCCCS provider in 2019 for fear his criminal history would get the application denied. Between January 2020 and October 2021, Aurtism billed AHCCCS $6,538,485.09 for counseling services never provided to enrollees, many of them members of the American Indian Health Plan. Harrison was sentenced in September 2025 to 52 months in federal prison and ordered to pay full restitution.
- Year
- 2025
- Where
- United States
- Outcome
- Sentenced
- Reported loss
- $6.5 million
- Victims
- Not stated in the sources
- Schemes
- Sober living home and patient brokering fraud
- Last reviewed
- 2026-09-23
The facts, as recorded
- Harrison concealed his ownership interest in Aurtism LLC when applying to become an AHCCCS provider in 2019, because he feared the application would be denied based on his criminal history.
- Aurtism LLC obtained AHCCCS identification numbers for enrollees, many of them members of the American Indian Health Plan, and billed for behavioral health counseling services that were never provided.
- The fraudulent billing totaled $6,538,485.09, between January 2020 and October 2021.
- Harrison was sentenced on 15 September 2025 to 52 months in federal prison, followed by three years of supervised release, and ordered to pay $6,538,485.09 in restitution.
- The sentencing court noted the particular harm done to vulnerable populations in Arizona as a result of this type of fraud.
- The case was investigated by IRS Criminal Investigation and the FBI's Phoenix Division.
Why this case matters
This case shows a variant of the same fraud with no sober home or referral kickback described in the record at all, just a concealed owner with a criminal history running a “counseling” business that billed for sessions that, according to the government, were never held. It demonstrates that Arizona’s scandal was never limited to a single business model.
Hiding behind a clean application
Harrison did not falsify a treatment record in isolation; he first lied on the provider enrollment application itself, concealing his ownership stake because he believed disclosing his criminal history would have kept Aurtism LLC out of the AHCCCS network entirely. The billing fraud that followed was only possible because that initial concealment worked.
The caveat
Harrison’s case concluded with a sentencing; the facts above come from the IRS’s own published account of the conduct he was held responsible for and the court’s sentence, not unproven allegations.
Sources
- Georgia man sentenced to over 4 years in prison for fraud targeting AHCCCS. US Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation. Accessed 2026-09-23. Supports: Harrison's concealed ownership, the 2019 AHCCCS provider application, the $6,538,485.09 in fraudulent billing to American Indian Health Plan enrollees, the January 2020 to October 2021 fraud period, the 52-month sentence, restitution, and the sentencing court's statement.