Bridgehampton aide billed Medicaid for hundreds of hours of care she never gave disabled patients

It ranks among every family’s worst nightmares.

A loved one gets sick or can no longer care for themselves. You bring in an aide and trust that person to show up, do the work and treat your mom, dad, grandma or other relative with dignity. Then you learn someone has been billing for care that never came.

Prosecutors say that’s what happened to two residents of a Riverhead home for people with intellectual disabilities.

Latricia Hires, 23, of Bridgehampton was nabbed this week and charged with billing Medicaid for more than 300 hours of care she did not provide, Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond Tierney said.

Hires began working in September 2025 as an aide for two residents at L’Arche Long Island, a residential facility in Riverhead for people with intellectual disabilities, according to authorities. She was fired on Oct. 17, 2025.

But after she was let go, Hires kept submitting work hours to Public Partnerships LLC, the company that handles Medicaid payments for the program, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors said she then logged into the Public Partnerships app, posed as the disabled residents and approved her own falsified hours. In all, she allegedly stole more than $5,000.

“People with intellectual disabilities and their families deserve caregivers they can trust,” Tierney said. “This defendant allegedly exploited that trust for her own financial gain, continuing to bill Medicaid for services she was no longer providing.”

State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli called the alleged scheme “callous and inexcusable.”

State Police arrested Hires on Tuesday. She was arraigned before Town Justice Sean Walter in Riverhead Town Justice Court on charges of third-degree grand larceny, first-degree identity theft and third-degree health care fraud, all felonies. Additionally, she was slapped with a misdemeanor petit larceny charge.

The charges are not bail eligible under state law. Nonetheless, Hires is already serving time behind bars on unrelated offenses and went back to the Suffolk jail, prosecutors said. She is due back in court Oct. 27 on this case.

“May this arrest serve as a reminder that we will hold accountable people who are placed in a position of trust and prey on the vulnerable who depend on them,” State Police Superintendent Steven James said.

_{Top photos: Google Maps Street View and paperwork photo by Camilo Rueda Lopez.}