The U.S. Department of Justice on Wednesday announced health care fraud charges against a Virginia woman accused of taking part in a $49 million scheme to bill Virginia Medicaid for mental health crisis services. Mikia Antoneice Noble, 37, of North Chesterfield, was arrested the same day, according to the department.
A federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia returned the indictment on Oct. 20. Noble is charged with conspiracy to commit health care fraud and three counts of health care fraud. If convicted, she faces a maximum of 10 years in prison on each count.
An indictment is an allegation. Noble is presumed innocent unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
According to court documents, Noble was co-owner and chief operating officer of Advancing Communities Everywhere LLC, known as ACE, a mental health provider in the Richmond area. The Justice Department said ACE purported to provide services to people in acute behavioral health crises but did not provide those services as billed. The department said Noble also claimed to work as a mental health professional for ACE.
The indictment alleges that Noble conspired with her co-owner in several ways. It says they billed Medicaid for crisis services supposedly provided by teams that included a trained, licensed professional, when a single lower-level, less qualified mental health professional provided them instead.
The indictment also alleges they paid more than $2 million for hotel rooms offered to Medicaid beneficiaries. Prosecutors say the rooms were meant to illegally induce the beneficiaries to let ACE bill for services they did not need.
The indictment further alleges that records were falsified by adding signatures of licensed professionals who had not taken part in the services. It says Noble also added her own signature to records, falsely showing she had taken part in crisis services when she was out of the country. Finally, it alleges that Noble and her co-owner lied to Medicaid managed care organizations, which are private health plans that run Medicaid benefits and were auditing ACE’s crisis services.
From January 2022 through April 2026, Noble allegedly took part in submitting more than $49 million in false and fraudulent claims to Virginia Medicaid. The press release did not say whether the co-owner has been charged. It also did not say when Noble will first appear in court.
Assistant Attorney General Colin M. McDonald of the Justice Department’s National Fraud Enforcement Division, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Theophani K. Stamos for the Eastern District of Virginia, and Special Agent in Charge Ian Kaufmann of the FBI Richmond Field Office made the announcement. The FBI Richmond Field Office and the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit of the Virginia Office of the Attorney General are investigating.
Trial Attorneys Lauren Randell and Zachary H. Ray of the Fraud Division’s Health Care Fraud Section, along with Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert S. Day, are prosecuting the case.
The Justice Department said it announced the creation of the Fraud Division on April 7. It said the division’s work supports the president’s Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, chaired by Vice President J.D. Vance. The department also said its Health Care Fraud Strike Force Program, which has nine strike forces across the country, has charged more than 6,200 defendants since 2007. It said they collectively billed federal health care programs and private insurers more than $45 billion.