Biden Cuts Sentence for Ex-CEO Behind $19M Nursing Home Fraud

President Joe Biden has commuted the sentence of James Burkhart, a former Indiana healthcare executive who orchestrated a $19.4 million fraud scheme involving nursing homes owned by Marion County’s public health system. The decision was part of what the White House described as the largest single-day act of clemency in modern history, with Biden commuting sentences for nearly 1,500 individuals.

As the former CEO of American Senior Communities, Burkhart and his co-conspirators ran an elaborate scheme involving shell companies to siphon millions of dollars. The stolen funds were spent on luxury items such as private jets, vacation homes, diamond jewelry, and gold bars. Most of the stolen money came from Marion County’s Health & Hospital Corporation, a public health agency that owns nursing homes and operates Eskenazi Hospital.

Burkhart, who pleaded guilty in 2018 to conspiracy to commit fraud, conspiracy to violate the health care anti-kickback statute, and money laundering, had been serving a 9.5-year sentence in federal prison.

Until his downfall, Burkhart was a powerful figure in Indiana’s healthcare industry. Thanks to a lucrative agreement between American Senior Communities and the Health & Hospital Corporation, Burkhart had access to millions of dollars in public money through extra Medicaid reimbursements available only to publicly owned nursing homes. While drawing a salary exceeding $1 million per year, Burkhart further enriched himself by skimming money through sham contracts.

The scale of his influence was also apparent in his political connections. Burkhart was a significant campaign donor to both Republicans and Democrats. An FBI informant who wore a wire recorded Burkhart boasting about his political spending, saying, “I spent a lot of money on politicians.”

His downfall began when the FBI raided his Carmel home in 2015, exposing the fraud scheme. Since then, Burkhart has been assigned to home confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic, a decision in line with federal efforts to reduce prison populations.

The White House and the U.S. Department of Justice did not provide individual explanations for commuted sentences. However, a fact sheet released by the White House stated that those granted clemency had been in home confinement for at least a year and had “successfully reintegrated into their families and communities.”

The Bureau of Prisons website confirms that Burkhart, now 60 years old, was under the supervision of the residential reentry management field office in Detroit. His official release date was set for September 22, 2025, but Biden’s commutation cuts that timeline short.

In total, President Biden commuted the sentences of 1,499 individuals who had been serving time at home and pardoned an additional 39 people, including one Indianapolis woman, for nonviolent offenses.

While Burkhart’s release has sparked significant attention, it marks another chapter in Biden’s broader effort to grant clemency to those serving sentences under extraordinary circumstances. For Burkhart, whose legacy is now tainted by scandal, the commutation marks the conclusion of a dramatic fall from power in Indiana’s healthcare industry.