YOUNGSTOWN — Clad in an orange prison jumpsuit and handcuffed, Ryan Sheridan struggled to initial the two dozen or so pages of plea and forfeiture agreements that detailed the former Braking Point owner’s involvement in a more than $48.5 million Medicaid fraud.

Sheridan, 39, a Leetonia resident, appeared before U.S. Northern Ohio District Court Judge Benita Y. Pearson, pleading guilty to all 60 counts detailing the conspiracy to commit the fraud. The action completed a week that saw all six defendants plead guilty to various charges connected to the case.

When asked why he was pleading guilty, Sheridan told the judge, “The facts of the case — and going to trial doesn’t seem like a good idea.”

When asked to elaborate, the defendant said: “I read that someone in this case said the facts meet my behavior and I’ll have to agree with that. I am doing this of my own free will.”

The judge rejected a defense motion that Sheridan be released from the Northeast Ohio Correctional Center on Hubbard Road until the Jan. 23 sentencing.

Pearson said sentencing guidelines would limit Sheridan’s sentence to be somewhere between seven-and-a-half and a dozen years.

“I didn’t like your behavior the last time I let you go,” Pearson told the defendant, referring to his charges of fleeing or posing a danger to himself or others. “You were found to be highly intoxicated during the time you spent with your brother.”

During the one-hour, 45-minute hearing, lead prosecutor Mark Bennett laid out the case against Sheridan, which included one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud; seven individual counts dealing with the fraud against Medicaid, one count of conspiracy to illegally distribute drugs; the 22 individual counts dealing with drugs; one count of operating premises to illegally distribute controlled substances; and 28 counts dealing with money laundering.

Braking Point submitted approximately 134,744 claims to Medicaid for more than $48.5 million in services it claimed to provide between May 2015 and October 2017. The claims caused Medicaid to pay Braking Point more than $31 million. Medicaid suspended payments to Braking Point on Oct. 18, 2017, according to the indictment.

Bennett said Sheridan allowed false billing for unlicensed in-patient rehab services when patients were ambulatory, allowed ordering drugs such as Suboxone without proper certification, allowed an unlicensed counselor to treat patients and did not have a doctor supervising care for the patients.

The defense also agreed to forfeit 13 properties owned by Sheridan to offset some of the $24.479 million in restitution.

“There is only one victim in this case — the Ohio Department of Medicaid,” Bennett said.

One state elected official, however, disagreed, saying there is more than one victim in this case.

“The victim here isn’t just the health care system, it’s the people struggling with addiction who needed a beacon of hope but instead found themselves at the center of a shady scheme,” Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said. “I’m grateful for U.S. Attorney (Justin) Herdman’s work to secure justice for these victims and their loved ones.”

Included in the forfeiture agreement is $2.24 million from Sheridan’s bank account, $396,000 of cash, several properties in Columbiana, Mahoning and Columbiana counties, and replicas of vehicles used in the movies “Back to the Future,” “Ghostbusters” and “Batman.”

Earlier, Braking Point’s former Whitehall facility manager Lisa Pertee, 51, of Sunbury pleaded guilty to 22 counts dealing with ordering Suboxone using the certification number of a doctor who no longer worked for the rehab. Pertee will also be sentenced Jan. 23.

Also scheduled to be sentenced Jan. 23 will be former Austintown office manager Kortney L. Gherardi, 30, of Girard, who pleaded to one conspiracy count on Tuesday.

Also pleading guilty in the case were Sheridan’s ex-wife Jennifer, 42, of Austintown; Dr. Thomas Bailey, 45, of Poland; and Dr. Arthur H. Smith, 55, of Austintown, the former Braking Point medical director. Those three are scheduled to be sentenced Jan. 21.

The case was investigated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services — Office of Inspector General, FBI, IRS criminal investigations, DEA, and Ohio Attorney General’s Medicare Fraud and Corruption Unit.

gvogrin@tribtoday.com