A Westmoreland County, Pa., home healthcare service provider was arrested amid accusations she falsified records to inflate her pay by more than $130,000.

Mary Lowden

Mary Lowden, 41, of Monessen, Pa., faces single counts of insurance fraud and theft by deception, which could result in seven years in prison and a $15,000 fine, according to the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office.

The office said that Lowden allegedly submitted timesheets to an unnamed insurer, showing that she worked significantly more hours than she actually did.

From 2003 to 2008, Lowden provided periodical home care services for a woman left in a semi-comatose state after suffering serious injuries in a 1980 car accident. Lowden was paid for her services by the patient’s insurance company, based solely on timesheets she submitted.

An investigation into Lowden began in 2009, according to the attorney general’s office, after the patient’s mother informed her insurance agent that Lowden had not worked for her for about eight months. The insurance company said it had current timesheets for the home healthcare service provider, contradicting those claims, according to prosecutors.

Lowden’s timesheets allegedly indicated that she worked extended hours for many of the days she was scheduled and that she worked on days when she wasn’t scheduled to work at all.

The allegedly contradictions on the timesheets eventually led to formal criminal charges against Lowden.