Monday, April 09, 2007

Huge? Fired U.S. Attorneys; Medicare Fraud; Mysterious Deaths

More fired USAt.'s, more fired assistants, and two Texas prosecutors on Medicare fraud case found dead with months of each other.

Kansas City, MO 04/09/07 - Medical Supply Chain founder Samuel Lipari unearthed a US Department of Justice memo revealing the Office of the Attorney General had targeted not eight but ten US Attorneys including the former attorney for the Western District of Missouri, Todd P. Graves. The documents were obtained during Medical Supply Chain's discovery related to the civil antitrust action Medical Supply Chain, Inc. v. Novation LLC, et al, Western District of Missouri case #05-210-CV-W-ODS filed on March 9, 2005.

The e-mail dated January 9th, 2006 from Kyle Sampson, chief of staff for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, to Harriet Miers and William Kelley at the White House, shows the ten U.S. Attorneys that were first selected to voluntarily resign or face termination. Attorneys that resigned were redacted. Todd P. Graves of Missouri resigned March 24, 2006.


More - back to 2004. With Dime-Store Detective Novel Features:

Samuel Lipari became concerned that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was using the firing of appointed US Attorneys and senior assistant US Attorneys to obstruct justice in investigations involving public corruption on October 18, 2004 when white collar crime prosecuting Assistant US Attorneys Leonard Senerote, Michael Uhl and Michael Snipes were fired from the Ft. Worth Texas office of the US Attorney that had issued subpoenas in an ongoing investigation of Novation LLC and other hospital suppliers for anticompetitive practices. Samuel Lipari was especially concerned over the firings in the Ft. Worth office where the chief US Attorney responsible for Medicare fraud, Thelma Louise Quince Colbert had been found dead in her swimming pool on July 20th, 2004 and the Ft. Worth office Senior US Prosecuting Attorney that had signed the subpoenas, Shannon Ross (formerly of Kansas) was found dead in her home on September 13th, 2004. Shannon Ross's investigation of Novation LLC sparked the New York Times article "Wide U.S. Inquiry Into Purchasing For Health Care" on Saturday August 21, 2004.


Guess we gotta find out a little bit more about Novation LLC. More soon.

Check out this nugget. Carol Lam was prosecuting a Medicare fraud case when she was fired.:


The first prosecutor identified as being fired by the Office of the Attorney General was Carol Lam, a U.S. Attorney in San Diego, California. Carol Lam was personally prosecuting Medicare fraud at the Tenet Healthcare Alvarado hospital when political pressure was brought on the Justice Department to remove her from office. Carol Lam's prosecution caused the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services threatened to cut Medicare and Medicaid funds to Alvarado Hospital Case # 03CR15870 US Dist. Court Southern California.


Updated in 2 posts above.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Tenet was facing, on May 10, a (quoting Kyle Sampson's May 11 e-mail) "real problem we have right now with Carol Lam"

TIMELINE:
June 5, 2003 - Barry Weinbaum, CEO Alvarado Hospital (owned by Tenet), indicted for conspiracy to violate the federal antikickback statute and seven counts for offer and payment of illegal compensation
Oct. 20, 2005 - Eighteen Republican lawmakers, in a letter (signed by Cunningham while under investigation by Lam for corruption), criticize Lam's handling of immigration cases.
Mar. 9, 2006 - Bush signs the USA Patriot Improvement and Reauthorization Act.
May 5, 2006 - CIA director Porter Goss resigns unexpectedly.
May 10, 2006 - Lam notifies DoJ she planned to serve search warrants on Kyle Foggo, who resigned two days earlier as No. 3 official at the CIA.
May 10, 2006 - HHS Seeks to Knock Out San Diego Hospital
May 11, 2006 - Kyle Sampson e-mails deputy White House counsel William Kelley, re "the real problem we have right now with Carol Lam ....
May 11, 2006 - LA Times reports Cunningham probe expanded to include CA Republican, then-House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis.
May 12, 2006 - FBI agents seizes records from Foggo's CIA offices and his suburban Vienna, Va.
May 17, 2006 - Tenet Healthcare Agrees to Divest Alvarado Hospital
May 18, 2006 - Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) provides false information to AP that Lam has prosecuted only 6% of 289 suspected immigrant smugglers.
Dec. 7, 2006 - Michael Battle, director of the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, calls seven U.S. Attorneys to ask for their resignations.

==================================
Sources: McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Sun, Mar. 18, 2007 - http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/nation/16931334.htm
U.S. attorney's firing may be connected to CIA corruption probe
By Margaret Talev and Marisa Taylor

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/usa-timeline.php
TPM U.S. Attorney Purge Timeline

Tenet Hospital CEO Indicted for Allegedly Giving Doctors Incentives To Refer Patients to Hospital
http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=18154

U.S. v. Barry Weinbaum, Tenet HealthSystem Hospitals, Inc.
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/tenet/ustenet71703sind.pdf

Discussion: US Attorney Firing: Voter Fraud, Medicare Fraud, WHICH IS IT ???
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x853813