OC woman sentenced in 'largest fraud case' in country

An Orange County woman accused of ripping off insurance companies could spend 10 years in state prison as part of a plea deal. KPCC's Susan Valot says a judge sentenced her today.

Orange County prosecutors say Sue Nanda of Costa Mesa admitted to recruiting patients with medical insurance for unnecessary, mostly cosmetic, surgeries at the Unity Outpatient Surgery Center. Authorities say the patients got from $300 to $1,000 as part of the deal. Prosecutors say the 19 people involved scammed insurance companies out of $154 million.

The Orange County District Attorney's office calls it the largest medical fraud case in the nation. Prosecutors say Nanda recruited more than 170 healthy patients for surgeries. She faced up to 70 years behind bars.

Her plea deal reduced that to a decade in prison. An Orange County Superior Court judge went with a lesser sentence because of Nanda's charity work and her clean criminal record until now.