An Iowa attorney who made a false statement to Iowa Medicaid was sentenced on September 11, 2026, to six months in federal prison. Timothy Mark Anderson, 67, of Garner, Iowa, received the sentence after pleading guilty on October 30, 2025, to one count of false statement relating to healthcare.
Evidence at Anderson’s plea and sentencing hearings showed that Anderson is an attorney licensed to practice in Iowa. Anderson offers financial, tax, and estate planning services from his law office in Garner. Anderson’s legal services have included assisting elderly clients with Medicaid eligibility. Anderson is also an avid collector of Rolls-Royce and other luxury vehicles.
Medicaid is a cooperative federal-state healthcare benefit program for low-income persons and others, including the elderly. As part of his legal practice, Anderson prepared and submitted applications for Iowa Medicaid-funded nursing home care. Iowa Medicaid has eligibility rules, including an evaluation of the applicant's available financial resources. In determining the resources of an individual, one automobile is exempt, regardless of value, if it is used for the transportation of the Medicaid applicant or a member of the applicant’s household.
Between 2017 and 2022, Anderson told elderly individuals and their heirs to engage in a series of purported transactions with his vehicle collection. Anderson directed families to have the elderly person purportedly “buy” one of his Rolls-Royce or other luxury vehicles before applying for Medicaid benefits. Later, Anderson told the families to have the elderly persons “gift” the same vehicles to the heirs, who then “sold” the vehicles back to Anderson at a lower price. The purported purchasers of Anderson’s vehicles never drove the vehicles and, for the most part, never saw them.
For example, in 2021, an elderly couple had over $400,000 in assets, including a 2020 Chevrolet Equinox valued at $30,000. The couple wanted to become eligible for Iowa Medicaid, have Iowa Medicaid pay for nursing home expenses, and pass on their assets to their heirs. The husband in the couple was receiving nursing home care at the time without public assistance.
In October 2021, Anderson deposited a $186,000 check from the wife into his personal savings account and provided her a certificate of title to a 1961 Rolls-Royce Phantom V. Anderson signed the title for the Phantom V over to her. Anderson also created a bill of sale for the transaction, stating that the car was transferred on October 18, 2021. Two days earlier, on October 16, 2021, Anderson had driven the Phantom V and got into an accident. The car suffered front-end damage, was inoperable, and was towed to a farm shop.
On November 4, 2021, Anderson wrote Iowa Medicaid and provided a series of documents to qualify the husband for Iowa Medicaid benefits. Anderson provided a document that stated that the Phantom V had a fair market value of $194,000. At the time Anderson submitted the form to Iowa Medicaid, he knew that the fair market value of the car was not $194,000.
Anderson was sentenced in Cedar Rapids by United States District Court Judge Leonard T. Strand. Anderson was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment and fined $25,000. He was ordered to make $184,274.36 in restitution to Iowa Medicaid. He must also serve a two-year term of supervised release after the prison term. There is no parole in the federal system. In sentencing Anderson, Judge Strand found that Anderson’s luxury vehicle sales to the elderly Medicaid applicants were “obviously fraudulent and illegal.”
On April 7, the Department of Justice announced the creation of the National Fraud Enforcement Division. The core mission of the Fraud Division is to zealously investigate and prosecute those who steal or fraudulently misuse taxpayer dollars. Department of Justice efforts to combat fraud support President Trump’s Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, a whole-of-government effort chaired by Vice President J.D. Vance to eliminate fraud, waste, and abuse within Federal benefit programs.
Anderson was released on the bond previously set and is to surrender to the Bureau of Prisons on a date yet to be set. The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Timothy L. Vavricek and investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
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