Gavin Newsom told America his Medicaid program was a model for the nation.
Now investigators are asking how a strip-mall health company got so rich so fast.
A City Journal investigation just revealed what one California home health company did with $34 million in Medi-Cal payments.
California Home Health Agency Billed Medi-Cal 34 Million Dollars in Three Years
Chief Nathan Ogbatue runs California Home Health Agency out of a strip-mall office in Riverside. Between 2018 and 2021, his company billed Medicaid for less than $2 million total.
In 2022, the billing jumped to nearly $4 million. In 2023, it hit $17 million. In 2024, another $13 million.
More than $34 million from California's Medicaid program in three years – from a company with its blinds shut tight when City Journal reporters knocked on the door.
Haywood Talcove, CEO of LexisNexis Risk Solutions for Government, reviewed the billing data and called out the problem immediately. It wasn't what each service cost. It was the sheer number of services billed – a company that went from obscurity to the very top of California's statewide distribution for nursing and home health aide claims in a matter of years.
Mark Haskins, a fraud expert and former federal investigator, went further. In his experience, companies with unidentifiable employees, astronomical billing numbers, and years of missing mandatory disclosure reports carry all the hallmarks of a shell company fabricating patient identities and provider numbers to submit phantom billings.
California Home Health Agency hasn't filed a required utilization report with the state since 2019. The company kept collecting millions anyway.
Talcove identified the structural reason: California divided Medicaid oversight among three separate agencies with no coordination between them. One handled the reports. One issued the licenses. One cut the checks. When CHHA stopped filing, no one with the authority to stop payment ever found out.
Mansions, Motorcades, and Golden Statues
While the California billing was climbing, Ogbatue was building his legacy in Nigeria.
He was crowned chief of Abatete in 2012. A YouTube video captured his acceptance speech: he pledged to place Abatete's interests first in all his "private and official transactions."
He delivered. Ogbatue funded a new palace, roads, and a civic center renovated in his honor – complete with painted murals of him and his wife Agnes and two golden statues of the couple outside.
Last December, he arrived at the palace opening in a motorcade. A videographer hailed him in Igbo as "half man, half god."
https://twitter.com/christopherrufo/status/2097720768427880545
The California real estate trail tells a parallel story. In 2000, Ogbatue bought a Riverside home for $330,000. Then, between 2023 and 2024 – the same years his Medicaid billing exploded – he and Agnes bought a $2.7 million Riverside mansion, a $1.9 million beach house, and another $1.4 million in Riverside properties. More than $7 million in two years.
One of those properties had a disturbing history. The Redondo Beach home Ogbatue purchased had previously served as collateral for the bail bond of Tamara Motley – sentenced to federal prison in December 2023 for submitting $24 million in fraudulent Medicare claims.
Gavin Newsom Did Nothing While Trump Froze 1 Billion in Medi-Cal Payments
This isn't an isolated case. It's the predictable result of a system California has refused to fix.
Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, has made California his top target.
Eighteen percent of the entire country's home health billing flows out of Los Angeles County alone.
Home health spending in California grew by more than 21 percent in 2024 – the fastest rate of any health category in the nation.
The number of home health agencies in the state nearly doubled between 2019 and 2024.
In May 2026, the Trump administration froze $1.1 billion in California Medicaid funds. In July, HHS deferred an additional $867 million tied to California's in-home care programs. JD Vance called it the largest Medicaid deferral in history.
Gavin Newsom called it an attack.
When California tried to stop hospice fraud by imposing a moratorium on new providers, the fraud didn't stop – it migrated. In 2025 alone, 310 home health agencies enrolled in Medicare in Los Angeles County. Congressional testimony called it fraud displaced from one benefit to another.
Federal prosecutors charged 21 defendants in a $267 million Medi-Cal fraud scheme in April 2026. The DOJ launched a dedicated West Coast Health Care Fraud Strike Force the same month.
The pattern is always the same: phantom billing, shell companies, foreign money transfers, and states that couldn't connect the dots.
Nathan Ogbatue told City Journal reporters he had nothing to fear. He worked hard and had nothing to hide. He then declined to say how many employees his company had – across two separate phone calls.
His disbarred lawyer didn't return calls.
$34 million in Medicaid money. A strip-mall office with the blinds drawn. A palace in Nigeria. California never asked a single question.
Trump's team did. That's why Gavin Newsom is furious.
Sources:
- Christopher F. Rufo and Madeleine Rowley, "How Did This Nigerian Chief Make Millions From Medicaid?" City Journal, September 9, 2026.
- HHS Press Office, "HHS Defers More Than $1 Billion in Medicaid Payments to California, Minnesota Pending Review of High-Risk Claims," HHS.gov, July 21, 2026.
- Morrison Foerster, "DOJ Launches West Coast Strike Force to Target Healthcare Fraud Across Arizona, Nevada, and Northern California," May 5, 2026.
- Sheila Clark testimony, U.S. House Ways & Means Committee hearing on home health fraud, reported in Home Health Care News, April 22, 2026.
- Bill Essayli, U.S. Attorney, Central District of California, Los Angeles fraud crackdown press conference, January 9, 2026.
