First Posted: 12/11/2014

CHARLOTTE (AP) — Federal authorities say a Charlotte man will serve more than five years in prison and ordered to pay almost $550,000 as restitution to the North Carolina Fund for Medical Assistance.

U.S. Attorney Anne Tompkins says 33-year-old Calvin Cantrell Estrich was sentenced Wednesday for charges involving Medicaid fraud.

In November 2013, a jury convicted Estrich of committing health care fraud, making false statements in connection with a health care program, stealing the identities of children and clinicians to commit the fraud, money laundering and making false statements to investigators.

Evidence showed Estrich and co-conspirator Joye Strong defrauded Medicaid for medically unnecessary services. Strong was sentenced in August to five years of probation and ordered to pay restitution of more than $86,000.

Estrich’s sentence carries no possibility of parole.