US Attorney Firing: Voter Fraud, Medicare Fraud, WHICH IS IT ???

A previous thread on this topic is locked because a previous thread to
that was removed because it mentioned a source considered "dubious at best" on DU:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x849449#853598

PLEASE, do as the censors say so we can investigate the US Attorney firings.
Do not link the McCaskill letter from that forbidden domain.

So, let's try to investigate this some more:

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When did the US Attorney Firings controversy really begin?

I discovered some new possibilities while researching this thread:
Missouri attorney a focus in USA firings = Bradley Schlozman
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x832164

THIS is the article that garnered my interest:
Former MO US Attorney Todd Graves the Ninth Attorney Targeted by Alberto Gonzales
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x832164

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 ..... e-mail dated January 9th, 2006 from Kyle Sampson, .....

The Western District of Missouri US Attorney office under Todd P. Graves had been active in prosecuting Medicare fraud.....

================================
I also found this article:

Hijacking at the Hospital
Purchasing groups created to hold down health costs seem to be holding up patients instead.
By PABLO LASTRA - Feature: Wednesday, November 23, 2005
http://www.fwweekly.com/content.asp?article=3419

.................

Novation, a North Texas company that, while little known to the average person, has become the largest broker of hospital and medical supplies in the country, wielding enormous influence over the lives of patients, the safety of hospital workers, and the zooming costs of healthcare in this country. But it’s also a giant in trouble. Several small medical supply manufacturers that say they have been squeezed out of the market by Novation are lining up to sue, and the company has already paid out millions of dollars in settlements. Congress is in its third year of investigating Novation’s activities. At least one state attorney general is investigating the company. And now the company is a target of a Dallas-based investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s office into massive allegations of Medicare fraud — a probe that has been hampered by the deaths, within the last 18 months, of two of the prosecutors involved in it.

The irony is that Novation and other entities like it — called group purchasing organizations — were invented to help hospitals save money. But instead of saving patients money, many people charge, Novation, in effect, is working on behalf of manufacturers and suppliers, helping them — and Novation itself — to make as much money as possible, to the detriment of taxpayers and the healthcare-buying public. Moreover, a recent deal involving a publicly traded partner of Novation has raised more concerns about its position in the healthcare industry, which verges ever closer to a monopoly. All while prices for medical supplies — paid for by insurers, patients, and taxpayers — continue to escalate at a rate far outpacing inflation.

............

In 1986, Congress passed legislation regulating GPOs, including the so-called “safe harbor” agreement that exempts GPOs from federal laws against kickbacks. The rationale was that allowing GPOs to be financed by “administrative fees” paid by suppliers would allow hospitals to spend their money on patient care. Hospitals that belong to GPOs are obligated to buy supplies from them.

...........

===================================
Here is another article on the issue:

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales Sandbagged Novation LLC Prosecution
Written by Samuel Lipari
Kansas City, MO -- Apr 16, 2007 -- /prbuzz/ --
http://www.prbuzz.com/attorney-general-alberto-gonzales-sandbagged-novation-llc-prosecution-2136.html


On July 30, 2006 the British newspaper the Daily Mail reported that Novation was under a bribes probe by the US Department of Justice stating Novation; “…is being investigated by American prosecutors following accusations that it has accepted huge 'bribes' from medical manufacturers.”

.... the US Department of Justice investigation of Novation’s conduct as a hospital group purchasing organization or “GPO” and quoted Professor Prakash Sethi, president of the International Center for Corporate Accountability at Baruch College in New York who stated “My most conservative estimates suggest that GPOs extract extra profits of $5 billion (£2.6 billion) to $6 billion which legitimately belong to their principal clients, the hospitals.”

After Alberto Gonzales became Attorney General on February 3, 2005, the investigation of Novation was suppressed even though insider Novation executives came forward to the US Department of Justice with evidence of laundering hospital funds through the publicly traded electronic hospital supply marketplace Neoforma, Inc. that was then controlled by Novation, Volunteer Hospital Association (VHA), and University Health System Consortium (UHC) and is now owned by the electronic hospital supply marketplace GHX, LLC.

In an April 18, 2005 affidavit, Medical Supply Chain founder Samuel Lipari complained about FBI misuse of USA PATRIOT Act surveillance powers. .....

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Monkeyman Tue May-08-07 08:14 AM
KO--Federal Prosescutor Scandal- Voting Rights
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x27306

Run time: 06:39aA
Posted on YouTube: May 08, 2007
By YouTube Member: CSPANJUNKIEdotORG
Views on YouTube: 2337

Posted on DU: May 08, 2007
By DU Member: Monkeyman
Views on DU: 936
===================================

SMOKE SCREEN at work. Is Voting Rights and Voter Fraud just a new focus?
What is really behind the complete take over of the DoJ by politicos?

Why are USAs fired?

Lam = prosecuting Medicare Fraud, not voter fraud. And, Congressional corruption!!
Carol Lam was ousted and she was prosecuting big medicine = Novation, Tenet, et.al.
The same thing was going on in MO, investigation of a company Gonzales' former firm represents.

=======================================================================
DO NOT for one minute think that this was JUST about vote suppression!!
Placing politicos in DoJ jobs can subvert more aspects of the law than voting rights.
Is the 'voting fraud' SMOKE SCREEN now being used to SMOKE SCREEN
the real reasons WHY politicos are infiltratring the Justice Department????????

Tell the Justice Committee to look closer!
Consider why the Assistant US Attorneys were fired in TX.
White-collar crime, Medicare fraud, not voting.

I can't tell all of you how impressed I am with your posts over these past few weeks. My litigation with Novation has taken on a whole new meaning. Thanks for the support! S~

As long as we are talking about their election fraud which their DOJ refuses to prosecute and not the pathetic voter fraud their DOJ fabricates to pursue.

How can they continue to get away with the crimes they've committed and intend to commit if they are voted out of the office which provides them protection?

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

This article is a great read, truly sarcastic!!
Tenet owns Novation, a target of TX US Attorney investigations of Medicare fraud.

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Jeb Bush Joins the Tenet Gravy Train
By Brett Arends - Mutual Funds Columnist
5/9/2007 10:25 AM EDT
http://www.thestreet.com/_googlen/funds/followmoney/10355637.html?cm_ven=GOOGLEN&cm_cat=FREE&cm_ite=NA


A senior member of the Bush dynasty is about to get a large sum of money from a company with a history of ethical violations.

Stop me if you've heard this one before.

Jeb Bush, the president's brother and former governor of Florida, is up for election Thursday as a director of troubled hospital chain Tenet Healthcare (THC - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr - Rating). Assuming he's waved through, his pay in his first year would come to nearly $37,000 a day.

This is the same Tenet that had to pay $900 million to Uncle Sam last summer to settle charges that it had overbilled Medicare and Medicaid over many years.

Nine hundred million dollars. ......................

"Coronary: The True Story of Medicine Gone Awry," by journalist Stephen Klaidman
http://www.ereader.com/product/detail/24056?book=Coronary:_A_True_Story_of_Medicine_Gone_Awry

"A meticulous three–year FBI investigation and hundreds of civil suits culminated in no criminal charges but a series of settlements with Tenet Healthcare and the doctors that totaled more than $450 million............."

"Coronary" chronicles the story of two highly respected heart doctors who violated the most sacred principle of their profession: First, do no harm.

In the summer of 2002, fifty–five–year–old John Corapi, a Catholic priest with a colorful background, visited Dr. Chae Hyun Moon, a celebrated cardiologist in Redding, California. Corapi had been suffering from exhaustion and shortness of breath, and although a physical examination and a conventional stress test revealed nothing abnormal, Moon insisted that the calcium level in Corapi’s coronary arteries called for a highly invasive diagnostic test: an angiogram. A chain–smoking Korean immigrant known for his gruff bedside manner, Moon performed the procedure briskly and immediately handed down a devastating diagnosis: “I’m sorry; there is nothing I can do for you. You need a triple bypass tomorrow morning.” He then abruptly left the room.

Several hours later, however, Moon inexplicably decided the surgery could wait until Corapi returned from a previously scheduled cross–country trip. Unnerved by the dire diagnosis and also by Moon’s inconsistent statements, Corapi sought other opinions. To his amazement, a second, third, and fourth doctor found that his heart was perfectly healthy. In fact, for a man his age, Corapi’s arteries were remarkably free of disease.

Sensing a cause more disturbing than human error, Corapi took his story to the FBI. .................

================
When medicine goes awry - Book tells story of surgeries performed for profit, not healing
Behind the Scenes on TODAY with Robin Thicke
March 8, 2007 - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17507927

In his new book "Coronary: The True Story of Medicine Gone Awry," journalist Stephen Klaidman chronicles the story of two California heart specialists who violate their most sacred oath:"First, do no harm." An FBI investigation into wrongdoing and hundreds of civil lawsuits revealed disturbing facts about America's "medical-industrial complex." Klaidman was invited to appear on TODAY to discuss his book. Here’s an excerpt: ............

========================
I told the FBI about election fraud, and got no response!! ( YET ;-) )

Tenet Healthcare Corp. said it granted Jeb Bush shares worth about $257,000 at Monday's closing price.

Mr. Bush, former governor of Florida and the brother of President Bush, has agreed to stand for election to the board at the company's annual meeting on May 10 and is eligible to participate in all compensation plans open to directors of the company, Tenet said in a regulatory filing. The grant of 34,667 shares was reported in a separate filing Monday.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/stories/DN-localbriefs_01bus.ART.State.Edition1.365ac8d.html

see also:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=safari&rls=en&q=Tenet+fraud+florida&btnG=Search

CORPORATE GOVERNANCE - Tenet hands Jeb Bush a big windfall
Jeb Bush will get over $450,000 in the next year from Tenet for being a board member -- about three times what the average director makes at major U.S. corporations.
BY JOHN DORSCHNER
http://www.miamiherald.com/103/story/103128.html


... Bush has already received 34,667 shares worth $260,000, which he has registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission. He will receive a $65,000 annual retainer fee, plus $1,500 per board meeting and $1,200 per committee meeting attended. And finally, he will get $130,000 annually in stock ....
... way above the directors' compensation for the Standard & Poor's 500 companies... the former governor would be getting $9,125 an hour.
....
Randy Ramirez, a compensation specialist with the consulting firm BDO Seidman, ... thought Bush would be a great help to Tenet, with his background in government and business. "Just getting them off God-knows-how many watch lists they're on right now would certainly be a big step."....

Jeb Bush Lands Huge Paycheck at Scandal Plagued Healthcare Company -- With a Little Help from Dad's Friends (14 comments )
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shelley-lewis/jeb-bush-lands-huge-paych_b_48191.html

If you've been worried sick about what would become of ex-Governor Jeb "No Futuro" Bush since his big brother totally screwed his chances for ever being elected president,....

It's a special board seat created just for Jeb, at the suggestion of an old Bush family friend and fundraiser. .... All he has to do is sit on the board of a hospital chain so ethically challenged that even the Bush administration went after them. ....

By the way, former US attorney Carol Lam was prosecuting a Tenet owned hospital when she as fired. The case had gone to trial but the jury failed to reach a verdict and a mistrial was declared. Alberto Gonzalez's chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, then wrote to Harriet Miers suggesting that Lam and several others be removed. ........

You didn't honestly think he was going to have to get a real job and work for a living, did you?

Leahy, Specter Seek Cooperation from DOJ Official, Former Interim US Attorney
In Judiciary Panel's DOJ/US Attorney Probe

Below is a letter sent today by Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), and Ranking Member Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), to Bradley Schlozman, former interim U.S. Attorney in the Western District of Missouri, and former Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, seeking his cooperation with the Committee’s ongoing investigation into the mass firings and replacements of U.S. Attorneys and politicization within the Department of Justice. A PDF is also available.

May 7, 2007


Mr. Bradley Schlozman
Office of the Counsel to the Director
Executive Office for United States Attorneys
United States Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Room 2242
Washington, DC 20530-0001

Dear Mr. Schlozman:

The Senate Judiciary Committee is conducting an ongoing investigation into politicization of the hiring, firing, and decision-making of United States Attorneys. As part of the investigation, the Committee has learned that the concerns of some in the Administration about voter fraud may have played a significant role in the consideration of U.S. Attorneys for possible dismissal.

According to the testimony of the Attorney General and D. Kyle Sampson, his former Chief of Staff who said he “aggregated” the list of U.S. Attorneys to fire, Karl Rove talked to the Attorney General about concern with voter fraud in districts in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and New Mexico. One of these districts was that of David Iglesias, former U.S. Attorney for the District of New Mexico, who was subsequently added to the list of U.S. Attorneys to be replaced. In addition, among the documents produced by the Department of Justice is a 30-page report concerning alleged voting improprieties in Wisconsin in 2004 that contains handwritten notes suggesting a concern with prosecution of voter fraud in numerous districts.

Recent news accounts have suggested that Todd Graves, the former U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri and the person you succeeded as an interim United States Attorney, may have been on a list for replacement because of his refusal to endorse a lawsuit against the State of Missouri alleging voter fraud before the 2006 election. This is a lawsuit you approved while Acting Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division and then filed soon after you were interim appointed as Mr. Graves’ successor by Attorney General Gonzales. Several weeks ago, a federal judge ruled in favor of Missouri in that case, finding “no evidence” of major voter fraud in the state.

We believe the Committee would benefit from hearing directly from you in order to gain a better understanding of the role voter fraud may have played in the Administration’s decisions to retain or remove certain U.S. Attorneys. We would like to work out a process for you to make yourself available to the Committee for interviews, depositions, or hearing testimony, on a voluntary basis, and to produce documents in your possession, control, or custody related to our investigation.


Sincerely,

PATRICK LEAHY ARLEN SPECTER
Chairman Ranking Member

What is the media currently saying?

====================
Who's Afraid of the White House Attorneys Connection?
Tuesday, May. 08, 2007 By MASSIMO CALABRESI - WASHINGTON
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1618596,00.html

If the White House did nothing improper in the controversial firing of eight U.S. Attorneys last year, why would top officials in the Justice Department, perhaps including Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, have tried to conceal its role in the dismissals?

That question has come into focus as congressional investigators follow the trail of an e-mail sent February 7, 2007 by Gonzales' spokesman Brian Roehrkasse. In the message he told two top Gonzales aides that the Attorney General was "extremely upset" that his deputy, Paul McNulty, had told the Senate Judiciary committee the day before that one of the attorneys, Bud Cummins of Arkansas, had been fired to make room for an aide to Karl Rove. .....

...... McNulty has told Congressional investigators that he was troubled to learn of the extent of White House involvement when Sampson told him March 8. That afternoon Sampson went to McNulty's deputy, a forty-year Justice Department veteran named David Margolis, and read him e-mails showing the White House role. In an interview with Judiciary committee staffers, Margolis said he was stunned by the revelations,......

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USA > Justice - May 9, 2007 edition
It's not just about fired US attorneys anymore
Congress is asking pointed questions about the role of partisanship in prosecutions, hirings at Justice Department.
By Peter Grier | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0509/p02s01-usju.html

..... As long as Gonzales stays in office, he remains a focus for criticism that might otherwise be directed elsewhere...... The controversy is no longer just about fired US attorneys, for example. The Justice Department itself has now begun an internal investigation into whether Monica Goodling, Gonzales's White House liaison, illegally took partisan affiliation into account when hiring lower-level prosecutors.

The Senate Judiciary Committee wants to know whether a similar process occurred at the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. Panel members have written Civil Rights Division official Bradley Schlozman to ask about allegations that job applicants were told to scrub GOP references from their résumés.

And lawmakers continue to pursue that vexing question: Why were those US attorneys fired?

No voter fraud here.

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NPR Legal Affairs - How Prosecutor Lam's Case Was Handled
LISTEN to this story... by Scott Horsley
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=8983665


Weekend Edition Sunday, March 18, 2007 · Among the eight fired U.S. attorneys is Carol Lam of San Diego. Her office brought the corruption case that sent Rep. Duke Cunningham, a California Republican, to prison. Related documents shed light on how the Justice Department handled its "problems" with Lam.

Timeline: The Firing of U.S. Attorney Carol Lam

Carol Lam was a U.S. Attorney in San Diego, Calif. She prosecuted former Republican Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, now in federal prison for accepting bribes. The Justice Department has said that Lam was let go because she wasn't aggressive enough in prosecuting immigration and gun cases. But a 2005 performance review cited her as "an effective manager and respected leader."

Below is a timeline of the events leading up to Lam's dismissal.

February 17, 2005: Mistrial declared in first Medicare fraud trial against San Diego's Alvarado Hospital, after jury fails to reach a verdict. U.S. Attorney Carol Lam suggests a retrial is likely.

March 2, 2005: Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' Chief of Staff Kyle Sampson emails White House Counsel Harriet Miers, recommending removal of Carol Lam .......

February 15, 2007
Diane Feinstein Says "Thank You, Carol Lam"
http://www.pacificviews.org/weblog/archives/002473.html

The other day, I noted that Carol Lam deserves our thanks for her work in prosecuting Duke Cunningham and indicting Brent Wilkes and Dusty Foggo. Well, it seems that there is a great deal more that she's accomplished as prosecutor and where she served the public good that should be recognized. Via TPMMuckraker, here's Diane Feinstein's thanks to Carol Lam for her service as US Attorney.

Today is U.S. Attorney Carol Lam's last day in office. I want to commend her. I thank her for the work she has done in that office. She was sworn in as U.S. attorney in September of 2002 and was appointed by the President in November 2002. Prior to serving as U.S. attorney, she was a judge of the Superior Court of San Diego, and she served as an assistant U.S. attorney in the southern district of California for 11 years. So she was no newcomer. She has been successful in bringing many of the country's most important corruption cases. I want to go through a few of them.

In March of 2004, Steven Mark Lash, the former chief financial officer of FPA Medical Management, was sentenced for his role in defrauding shareholders and lenders of FPA. The collapse of the company left more than 1,600 doctors being owed more than $60 million and patients reported being unable to obtain medical care because FPA had ceased paying providers. Thank you, Carol Lam.

.................

May 11, 2006 - Health Care Law Blog - by Mr. Greg Piche, an attorney at Holland & Hart LLP where he specializes in health care law.
TENET MEDICARE EXCLUSION – BEING PECKED TO DEATH BY FEDERAL DUCKS
http://hollandhart.typepad.com/healthcare/2006/05/tenet_medicare_.html

On May 8, the Office of Inspector General announced its intention to exclude a Tenet Healthcare Corp. hospital in San Diego from Medicare and other federal programs. The U.S. attorney in San Diego, Carol Lam, brought two successive expensive and extensive criminal prosecutions against Tenet, Alvarado Hospital Medical Center and a former administrator at the hospital.

The allegations were basically that Alvarado used an aggressive physician recruiting incentive program to funnel cash to existing physicians practices in order to induce referrals from these physicians. Both cases took many months to try. Both ended in mistrials when the juries deadlocked.

Congress first mandated the exclusion of physicians and other health care practitioners convicted of program-related crimes in the 1977 Medicare-Medicaid Anti-Fraud and Abuse Amendments. In 1981 Congress enacted the Civil Money Penalties Law, which authorizes the HHS and OIG to impose civil money penalties and program exclusions against individuals and entities who submit false or fraudulent, or otherwise improper claims for Medicare or Medicaid payment. The Medicare and Medicaid Patient and Program Protection Act of 1987 established certain mandatory and discriminatory exclusions for stated types of misconduct.

..............

US Attorney Todd Graves in Missouri: The ninth victim of Gonzogate
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/17/18120/2944

The Carol Lam connection to Tenet

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. 

Source: http://littlethomsblog.blogspot.com/2007/04/huge-fired-us-attorneys-and-medicare.html

And, this from NPR (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=8983665):

February 17, 2005: Mistrial declared in first Medicare fraud trial against San Diego's Alvarado 
Hospital, after jury fails to reach a verdict. U.S. Attorney Carol Lam suggests a retrial is likely.

March 2, 2005: Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' Chief of Staff Kyle Sampson emails White House 
Counsel Harriet Miers, recommending removal of Carol Lam and several others as "weak U.S. Attorneys 
who have been ineffectual managers and prosecutors, chafed against Administration initiatives, etc." ....

Firing Carol Lam Was a CRIME, Stupid
by TocqueDeville
Sun May 06, 2007 at 11:12:15 PM PDT
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/5/7/05210/66832
.......

Once the press get's its narrative, it's almost impossible to change it. ......

.. Lam's statement:

 
   "He  insisted that I had to depart in a matter of weeks, not months, and that
   these instructions were "coming from the very highest levels of the government." 

This is obstruction and it points right to the White House.

On a scale of 1 to 100, the Lam firing was 100 to the seven other's 3. In fact, it is highly reasonable to suspect that the other seven were merely fired to cover for ousting Lam.

Only in TV Land is Carol Lam just another fired prosecutor. And only in the cesspool of corruption that is the Washington establishment is this all just "politics".

Now, I think the politization of the justice department is a huge story. And so is, of course, voter fraud, false claims of voter fraud, and especially the use of the justice department as a political weapon as exposed by Donald C. Shields and John F. Cragan's study which was reported by Paul Krugman.

All of this is grounds for an independent prosecutor.

But make no mistake, Carol Lam was "the real problem" and her firing was a real crime. .............

=================================
LOTS OF COMMENTS FOLLOW the article.

Comments by the Service Employees International Union on
Hospital Group Purchasing Organizations before The United
States Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Antitrust,
Business Rights, and Competition
September 14, 2004
http://www.masimo.com/pdf/home/SEIU_Testimony091404.pdf


The 1.6 million members of the Service Employees International
Union (SEIU) are pleased to submit testimony to the United States
Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Antitrust, Business Rights, and
Competition on the impact of hospital group purchasing organizations
(GPOs)......

SEIU is concerned that questionable practices by the nation’s largest
GPO, Novation, lead to rising costs in the health care supply chain,
while at the same time limiting provider choices in a way that risks the
safety of both health care workers and their patients. These rising costs
lead to short staffing in hospitals, loss of insurance for working families, increased cost
pressure on small businesses, over-crowded emergency rooms, and growing burdens on
public and private health care purchasers. .........

Novation is finding new ways to exploit its position as dominant GPO by
receiving fees above and beyond the 3% ceiling mandated in the safe harbor.

- Novation’s private label brand, NovaPlus, appears to serve little purpose other
then to collect additional fees beyond those permitted by the safe harbor..............

Friday, November 25, 2005
The Investigation of Novation
http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/2005/11/investigation-of-novation.html

The Fort Worth Weekly has an investigative report on the curious world of hospital group purchasing organizations, focusing on Texas based Novation.

Novation, and other group purchasing organizations (GPOs), were originally intended to help hospitals save money by banding together to negotiate better prices for hospital supplies and equipment. There are currently about 600 GPOs, "wielding control over $66 billion in healthcare supplies every year. Only about 30 have the size to negotiate significant volumes of sales, and the largest of them all is Irving-based Novation, a for-profit cooperative that claims to broker $24 billion in sales annually. Novation and Premier, the second-place company, together control about 54 percent of all hospital purchases."
...........
In summary, although GPOs were ostensibly set up simply to save hospitals money when purchasing supplies and equipment, these organizations have turned into huge, complicated and opaque entities whose actions are hidden, but which seem to be conveying large amounts of money back and forth among suppliers, hospitals, and the GPOs themselves. It is not at all clear that the GPOs save the hospitals money, nor get them the best possible supplies for the money they spend..................

http://www.opensecrets.org/lobbyists/index.asp

In addition to campaign contributions to elected officials and candidates, companies, labor unions, and other organizations spend billions of dollars each year to lobby Congress and federal agencies. Some special interests retain lobbying firms, many of them located along Washington's legendary K Street; others have lobbyists working in-house. We've got totals spent on lobbying, beginning in 1998, for everyone from AAI Corp. to Zurich Financial.

======== Top Spenders, 1998-2006

#1 - US Chamber of Commerce - $317,164,680

#2 - American Medical Assn - $156,375,500

#3 - General Electric - $137,770,000

#4 - American Hospital Assn - $129,114,026

========= Top Sectors, 1998-2006

#1 - Finance, Insurance & Real Estate - $2,558,205,882

#2 - Health - $2,298,865,053

BUSH DONORS, Pioneer: Jeffrey C. Barbakow : Ousted CEO & Chair, Tenet Healthcare. Novation LLC, Irving, TX, is a subsidiary of health care giant Tenet HealthCare.
http://www.tpj.org/docs/pioneers/pioneers_view.jsp?id=511

Tenet Healthcare’s board ended Jeffrey Barbakow’s 10-year reign as CEO in May 2003 with the company where it was at the start of his 10-year reign--under a massive scandal cloud. Federal investigators raided Tenet facilities in 2002, probing federal charges that Tenet hospitals, officials and doctors: Over-billed Medicare; Paid doctors illegal referral kickbacks; and Performed unnecessary heart surgeries.

A 2003 shareholder committee reported that Tenet could face legal liabilities of up to $6 billion for its Medicare billing practices alone. Tenet agreed to pay a record $54 million in 2003 to settle federal charges that doctors at one of its California hospitals billed Uncle Sam for unnecessary surgeries. Tenet’s own executives were horrified to learn in 2003 that, in its aggressive efforts to collect money from uninsured patients (who pay the hospitals’ highest rates), Tenet had put liens on people’s mobile homes. Tenet dodged federal taxes by exploiting a a tax shelter marketed by KPMG that the IRS declared abusive in 2003. .......................

======================
By the time of his reelection in November 2004, George W. Bush's campaign committee identified 548 individuals who had achieved Ranger (minimum of $200,000) or Pioneer (minimum of $100,000) status as elite fundraisers for the 2004 reelection effort.

Texans for Public Justice is an Austin-based non-profit that organized in 1997 to take on political corruption and corporate abuses in Texas, through intensive research and public advocacy ...........

Who Are The Bush Pioneers & Rangers?
The Scandal Sheet on Pioneers & Rangers
http://www.tpj.org/pioneers/pioneers04/who_scandal.html

Corporate Scandals
At least 148 of the 642 elite 2000 and 2004 Bush donors (23 percent) have been involved in corporate scandals or helped run companies involved in them. At least 100 of the 2004 elite donors (19 percent) have corporate-scandal status.

* The scandal poster boy is Enron Pioneer “Kenny Boy” Lay, who was one of 22 wealthy business leaders whom President Bush invited to lunch in 2001 to discuss his tax cut for the wealthy. Later that year, disclosures about Enron’s conflicts of interest and flimflam accounting reduced this $60 billion Wall Street darling to bankruptcy. Enron’s colossal fraud would have been impossible without the active or passive cooperation of Enron’s:
o Auditor, Arthur Anderson, which employed 2000 Pioneer Stephen Goddard as head of its Houston office;
o “Outside” law firm Vinson & Elkins, which employs two-time Pioneer Thomas Marinis; and
o Such investment banks as Credit Suisse First Boston, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Merrill Lynch and UBS, which collectively employ 10 elite Bush donors.

Campaign Donor Scandals
At least 82 of the 642 elite 2000 and 2004 Bush donors (13 percent) have been involved in scandals that involve campaign-donor clout—either their own or that of their employers. At least 53 of the 2004 elite donors (10 percent) have ties to campaign-donor scandals.

..................

Nov 29, 2005 - Bush Pioneer Implicated In Cunningham Bribery
by Steve Soto
http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/006148.php

....It was clear from facts in the criminal charges to which Cunningham pleaded guilty on Monday in San Diego that Mitchell J. Wade, president of Washington-based MZM Inc., is "Coconspirator No. 2." Yesterday, a lawyer for Brent Wilkes, head of San Diego area defense contractor ADCS Inc., said Wilkes is "Coconspirator No. 1" in the charging documents.......

Wilkes and his wife, Regina, contributed nearly $140,000 to lawmakers and PACs between 2001 and 2004, according to data published by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. Wilkes was also a "Pioneer" in Bush's 2004 reelection campaign, a designation indicating he raised at least $100,000.

Aside from being a Bush Pioneer in 2004, Wilkes is an ATM for the GOP, as is his wife Regina......

great work here :thumbsup:

I do not see details in the media on how the fraud was dealt with, except that the fines are levied, plus the Corporate Integrity Agreement (CIA) ENDS investigations by DoJ and US Attorneys (see below).

Notice, what is the size of the $$ fine relative to the profit from the fraud??? or the stock options of Bush's Pioneer?

Fallout from Whistleblower's Revelations
Pfizer CFO Resigns
By PETER ROST, MD
http://counterpunch.com/rost05212007.html

Pfizer's CFO Alan Levin's resignation was hastily announced 9:25 PM on Sunday evening in a BusinessWire news release..... after three days of disclosures of corruption in Pfizer's finance department, revealed by former Pfizer finance executive Mr. Ashok S. Idnani ....

.... Rost ... devoted his blog to an astonishing series of posts which allegedly describe how Pfizer execs in India took kickbacks in connection with the sale of a Pfizer building for far less than it was worth; how Pfizer hires private detectives to spy on rival executives and pay bribes, and how Pfizer India kept a "gift" list for certain Indian government officials....

........sordid proof that Pfizer fired a finance executive who repeatedly warned Pfizer that the company hired detectives who paid bribes, used corporate spies, pretexting, and payed off competitor's employees to leak confidential information, and used other potentially illegal means of obtaining information ....

Peter Rost ... is the author of "The Whistleblower, Confessions of a Healthcare Hitman." See: http://the-whistleblower-by-peter-rost.blogspot.com/

=============== PFIZER INC - Client Summary, 2006 ======================
Total Lobbying Expenditures: $12,220,000
http://www.opensecrets.org/lobbyists/clientsum.asp?txtname=Pfizer+Inc&year=2006

WHERE: Lobbying disclosure rules require all clients and the lobbying firms they hire to name the agencies where lobbying activity occurred ....
Agencies Lobbied:
Dept of Commerce
Dept of Health and Human Services
Dept of State
Executive Office of the President
Food and Drug Administration
Office of US Trade Representative
US House of Representatives
US Senate

=======================
Political Contributions:

2006 Election Cycle
   Contributions    Dems         Repubs
   $1,913,339       $620,560     $1,271,789

==========
Pfizer Inc
Pfizer is one of the biggest players in what is widely considered the most influential industry in Washington: pharmaceutical manufacturers. As one of the five largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, Pfizer produces several of the best-selling prescription drugs on the market, including Viagra, the celebrated treatment for impotence. Year after year, Pfizer and other drug makers have successfully fought efforts in Congress to attach a prescription drug benefit to Medicare. The industry also opposes efforts to make it easier for generic drugs to enter the market.

COMPLAINT for federal antitrust and state contract related claims.
http://www.medicalsupplychain.com/docs%5CMSC%20vs.%20Novation%20et%20al.doc

Medical Supply CHAIN, INC., Plaintiff, v. NOVATION, LLC, et.al
Case No. 05-0210-CV-W-ODS

.......
The Need For Private Antitrust Enforcement

95. At the close of the US Senate Judiciary Committee's Antitrust Subcommittee’s hearing entitled “Hospital Group Purchasing: How to Maintain Innovation and Cost Savings” on Tuesday, September 14, 2004, the subcommittee's chair suggested that the 1.8 trillion dollar market's anti-competitive behavior might be better corrected with private antitrust litigation than with new legislation.

i. The Limited Resources Of The US Department Of Justice

96. Two US Attorneys that appeared connected to the criminal investigation of Novation, LLC have died and three more in the Ft Worth office of the US Department of Justice with antitrust expertise have been dismissed.
97. The Ft. Worth US Attorney’s office has been at the epicenter of where civil antitrust actions by manufacturers foreclosed from group purchasing organization distribution systems have been litigated and is believed to have been the center of effort behind the government’s criminal investigation of hospital supply relationships.
98. On October 18, 2004 Leonard Senerote, A former U.S. Army Special Forces officer who was an expert in complex securities cases and an antitrust trial attorney, Michael Uhl and Michael Snipes, veteran prosecutors with expertise in white collar fraud and corruption were announced as separating from the Ft. Worth Office of the US Attorney.

......
100. Medical Supply does not believe there is currently an active criminal investigation of the supplier side of hospital Medicare false claims.

Would you fire this attorney?

FindLaw > Lawyer Directory > Lawyer Profile
http://pview.findlaw.com/view/1294275_1

Leonard A. Senerote
Firm: Fitzpatrick Hagood Smith & Uhl LLP

Mr. Senerote is a nationally-recognized practitioner in antitrust and securities litigation, having served 12 years as a trial attorney in the Antitrust Division, U. S. Department of Justice, and 16 years as an Assistant U. S. Attorney for the United States Attorney’s Office, Northern District of Texas. He was responsible for investigating and prosecuting criminal violations of the securities and anti-trust laws of the United States.
.......
From 1977 to 1989, Mr. Senerote was a trial attorney assigned to the Dallas Field Office, Antitrust Division, U. S. Department of Justice, where he received the Antitrust Division Award of Merit in 1984.

From 1989 to 2004, Mr. Senerote served as an Assistant U. S. Attorney, United States Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of Texas. During his service as an Assistant U. S. Attorney, Mr. Senerote’s superior trial and legal skills were frequently recognized as among the best in the nation. In 2001, he was awarded the Barefoot Sanders “Prosecutor of the Year” Award by the Greater Dallas Crime Commission. Mr. Senerote received the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission “Courage and Valor” Award in 2002.

...........

Profile Last Updated:
5/3/2007

Would you fire this attorney?

FindLaw > Lawyer Directory > Lawyer Profile
http://pview.findlaw.com/view/2122957_1

Michael J. Uhl
Firm: Fitzpatrick Hagood Smith & Uhl LLP

.... Mike is a recognized expert in White Collar Crime, Fraud and Corruption and he is a frequent lecturer on these and other criminal justice topics. He is an Adjunct Professor at Dedman SMU Law School where he teaches White Collar Crime. ...

After four and one-half years as an Assistant District Attorney, Mr. Uhl became a federal prosecutor at the United States Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Texas. Mr. Uhl started his career by investigating and prosecuting large drug organizations. He successfully prosecuted the largest crack cocaine organization in Dallas. After several years of successfully prosecuting federal drug and violent crime cases, Mr. Uhl effectively investigated and prosecuted hundreds of complex white collar fraud and public corruption cases. .... He handled some of the office's most complex, sensitive cases. .... Mr. Uhl has been honored by several law enforcement and local agencies and was named the Dallas Crime Commission 1999 Federal Prosecutor of the Year.

During his fourteen and one-half years as an Assistant United States Attorney, Mr. Uhl was a frequent lecturer on many criminal justice related topics and was on the Justice Department's National Evaluation and Review staff. For several years he's been an SMU Adjunct Professor teaching White Collar Crime. Mr. Uhl headed the Dallas Corporate Fraud investigation and prosecution group and the U.S. Attorney's White Collar Crime and Public Corruption section and is an expert on corporate compliance. Mr. Uhl has extensive experience in grand jury investigations and trials. He has also handled federal appeals and has appeared before the U.S. Court of the Appeals for the Fifth Circuit of Appeals to argue cases.

Mr. Uhl has been recognized by many organizations and groups and has received numerous awards throughout his legal career. ..........

Does anyone have details on this case? What info about whom was conveyed to whom for what purpose?
"The case ... prosecuted by ... Michael J. Uhl." May 20, 2004 USA's announcement has defendant pleading guilty to 3 charges.

========================
Local FBI Employee Indicted for Public Corruption
November 5, 2003 - http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/fudgeIndict.htm

United States Attorney Jane J. Boyle announced that a federal grand jury in Dallas returned a ten-count indictment today charging Lancaster, Texas, resident, Jeffrey D. Fudge, with various felony charges related to the misuse of his position of trust as a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) investigative analyst. Fudge, age 33, was arrested and fired at the FBI Headquarters late this afternoon.

... the indictment charges him with eight counts of exceeding authorized access to a government computer ....

As an investigative analyst, Fudge’s duties included conducting database searches using the FBI computer system, serving subpoenas, analyzing telephone records, and generally assisting FBI agents in conducting criminal and administrative investigations. The FBI computer systems he accessed included the Automated Case Support system (ACS), the National Crime Information Center (NCIC), the Texas Crime Information Center (TCIC), the Texas Law Enforcement Telecommunications System (TLETS), and the FBI Network (FBINET). He was authorized to access FBI computers and FBI computer systems and programs only for official business and “need to know.”

According to the indictment, from October 7, 1997 through April 25, 2003, Jeffrey D. Fudge accessed FBI files and computer programs on active or pending, pending inactive, closed, and non-existent FBI investigations and files and disclosed information from the files to friends and family members. He also accessed the FBI’s computer system to determine if the FBI was investigating the person about whom he inquired, including several locally prominent citizens.......

U.S. Attorney Boyle praised the investigative efforts of the Department of Justice, Office of Inspector General and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Michael J. Uhl.

===============================
03/17/04 -- 12:08 PM
FBI analyst faces trial for surfing law enforcement systems
By Wilson P. Dizard III, Staff Writer
http://www.gcn.com/online/vol1_no1/25279-1.html


A former FBI investigative analyst is set to go on trial .... If he is convicted on all the charges, Fudge could be imprisoned for up to 50 years or fined up to $2.5 million.

... Attorney Kevin Lamar Kelley of the firm of Kelley and Witherspoon of Dallas represented Fudge after his Nov. 5, 2003 arrest and firing.....

The false-statement charges allege that Fudge failed to cooperate with Justice Department agents investigating the case and failed to fully disclose the names of people to whom he passed on FBI files and computer programs.

=================================
--Original Message----- http://www.truthorfables.com/Readers_Testimony.htm
From: Jeffrey Fudge jazzyfudge@.....
Sent: Tuesday, June 17, 2003 2:55 PM
Subject: Tithing

Mr. Sanders,

Greetings in the name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. ....... you can post this e-mail.

Again God bless you for caring to put out the TRUTH, because those that worship God must worship Him in spirit and in truth.

God bless you,
Jeffrey D. Fudge
Dallas, TX

April 28, 2007
Email Interview With Samuel Lipari
http://littlethomsblog.blogspot.com/2007/04/email-interview-with-samuel-lipari_28.html

.......
You say USAtty Todd P. Graves was "fired." I can't find backup on that. Can you provide?

I have discovery. Everyone is entitled to that information, just tell your public servant Alberto Gonzales to give it to you and if he don’t tell his boss and if Bush doesn’t make it available, start the impeachment.

Unfortunately, I have to limit what I put out because I am still seeking court discovery orders. When they come it will likely be with strict protective orders. This is not a government case. Mr. Gonzales is responsible for the government’s case against Novation. .......

Here is Your Justice Department
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/benchconference/2007/05/rotten_to_the_core.html?hpid=opinionsbox1


Ah, the first weekend in May. Mint Juleps. An exciting Kentucky Derby. Playoff hockey. And news of another high-ranking Justice Department official reportedly hiring federal lawyers based upon their political affiliation-- a violation of federal law. This isn't a repeat of last week's news that Monica Goodling may have hired lawyers for the Justice Department because they were Republicans. This is "new" news that a fellow named Bradley Schlozman, a former "senior civil rights attorney" at Justice, may have told Republican lawyers to delete resume references to their party affiliation and then re-submit their resumes so that they could get their jobs.

That was when Schlozman was in Washington, D.C. ........

............

Congress wants to haul Schlozman back to the Capitol to question him under oath about his hiring practices. Will he pull a "Goodling" and exercise his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent? It would not surprise me if he did. Will the Congress grant him immunity the way it did with Goodling? Too early to tell. At some point, the incentive for the legislators to trade immunity for information at the expense of the possibility of prosecution (which was the calculus for the Goodling deal) will diminish. And when it does, the person without the immunity -- maybe it's Schlozman, maybe it's the next official -- actually may face criminal charges if the evidence against him or her is strong enough.

One thing seems clear, however. With each development like this, with each new accusation of inappropriate conduct, It is becoming increasingly obvious that there are patterns of conduct at play at the Justice Department and among current U.S. Attorneys that beggar not just a fuller explanation from the Attorney General and others but also more investigative work by journalists and legislators. This is rotten business and it was sanctioned, condoned, or even perhaps encouraged by rotten leaders.

Here is the other HEADLINE:

"... Gonzales while in private practice was a partner with the
law firm of Vinson & Elkins L.L.P. that represents Novation, LLC ..."

=====================
March 26, 2007

Hon. Senator Claire McCaskill
...
Dear Senator McCaskill,

I am writing to your constituent services office about my problem being denied
entry into the market for hospital supplies by Novation, LLC a hospital group purchasing
organization. I developed an electronic marketplace that supplies hospitals that includes
an automated bid fulfillment process that saves over 40% of the 1.8 trillion dollars
hospitals annually spend on hospital supplies.....

When I tried to enter the market for hospital supplies in 2002, Novation LLC and
other members of the hospital supply cartel caused me to be deprived of critical inputs to
obstruct and prevent me from competing to lower hospital supply prices. Since the Bush
administration was not enforcing 42 U.S.C. § 1320a-7b(b) or the Sherman Antitrust Act,
I attempted to obtain a civil injunction .....

The U.S. Justice department has been reported by the New York Times and the
London Times to be investigating Novation LLC for its anticompetitive practices in the
market for hospital supplies. The Assistant U.S. Attorney in Ft. Worth Texas who signed
the subpoenas against Novation LLC passed away as did the Ft. Worth office’s Assistant
Attorney in charge of Medicare Fraud two months earlier. The U.S. Attorney General
Alberto R. Gonzales immediately fired three more Assistant U.S. Attorneys with
extensive experience in prosecuting white collar crime that worked in the Ft. Worth,
Texas U.S. Attorney Office which started the investigation of Novation, LLC. The U.S.
Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales while in private practice was a partner with the
law firm of Vinson & Elkins L.L.P. that represents Novation, LLC in my complaint .......

Sincerely,
Samuel Lipari
Medical Supply Chain.......

TPM is focused on the voting and politization aspects, at least for today.

============
May 08, 2007 -- 04:36 PM EDT)
Meet new Attorney Purge bigwig Bradley Schlozman in today's episode of TPMtv ...
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/014029.php

May 09, 2007 -- 01:46 PM EDT)
The latest on the 9th fired US Attorney, in today's episode of TPMtv ...
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/014047.php

=============

TPMtv Guide: Tuesday, May 8
By Ben Craw
http://tpmcafe.com/blog/specialguests/2007/may/08/tpmtv_guide_tuesday_may_8


Well, mainstream media, better late than never. Yesterday evening CNN picked up on the story of Bradley Schlozman, the former US Attorney in Kansas City, who, if you’ve been reading TPMmuckraker at all for the past 3 weeks, you’ll know is at the epicenter of the Bush administration’s dramatic reshaping of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. In fact, CNN wasn’t the only one turning its gaze Schlozman’s way yesterday: the same evening the Senate Judiciary Committee sent Mr. Schlozman a letter requesting his cooperation in their ongoing investigation of the U.S. Attorney firings.

So we figured today’s episode of TPMtv would be a good opportunity to look back and recap our coverage of Bradley Schlozman: who he is and just how he fits into the U.S. Attorney scandal and particularly the Bush administration’s “war on voter fraud.”

..........

Number of Fired Prosecutors Grows
Source: Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/09/AR2007050902718.html?hpid=topnews

Subtitle: Dismissals Began Earlier Than Justice Dept. Has Said

The former U.S. attorney in Kansas City, Mo., Todd P. Graves, said yesterday that he was asked to step down from his job by a senior Justice Department official in January 2006, months before eight other federal prosecutors would be fired by the Bush administration. .....

GO TO LiberalFighter's DU Thread: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=2840911&mesg_id=2840911

Sat, Apr. 28, 2007
U.S. attorney uproar | Sources reveal four additional names
Prosecutor in Missouri was target of ouster
Todd Graves left his job voluntarily in 2006. He says now that he’s thankful that he did.
By DAVE HELLING and STEVE KRASKE and MARGARET TALEV
The Kansas City Star
http://www.kansascity.com/105/story/87005.html


Former U.S. Attorney Todd Graves of Kansas City was one of 12 prosecutors considered for removal by the White House in 2005 and 2006, congressional sources say.

.... congressional sources, who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to speak publicly, have told McClatchy Newspapers that four other attorneys, including Graves, were also targets for dismissal. .....

Graves wrote. “... the current environment at the department can only be described as toxic, and I am very thankful I left. … What is going on now in D.C. is a three-ring circus, and I don’t want to have anything to do with it.”

.............

Add another possible reason to this mix, VOTER FRAUD, MEDICARE FRAUD, and now PUBLIC CORRUPTION.

===================
Target the Corrupt Republican Campaign (Missouri Focus)
http://corruptrepub.blogspot.com/2005/07/target-corrupt-republican-campaign.html

......... Governor Matt Blunt has tried to prevent the U.S. Attorney's office from investigating his family's scandals by putting the wife of U.S. Attorney Todd Graves (U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri) on the Blunt Family payroll to the tune of a cool half million dollars a year, and he used taxpayer dollars to do it. This is described in the Kansas City Star. And here is an excerpt from a petition to Attorney General Gonzales demanding an investigation of this corruption:

It has recently been reported that United States Attorney Todd Graves and his family will personally benefit from no-bid state contracts valued at more than $3.6 million given by Missouri Governor Matt Blunt. This raises serious ethical and legal questions concerning Mr. Graves’ ability to perform his job, which includes investigating and prosecuting public corruption in federal, state and local government, including the Blunt administration, those who might attempt to influence the Blunt administration, or Blunt’s father, the United States Congressman from Missouri’s 7th District.

Awarding these contracts to the Graves family effectively undermines any attempt by the United States Attorney’s Office to investigate claims of public corruption .................

On Feb. 9, 2005 the Blunt administration announced that Tracy Graves, wife of United States Attorney Todd Graves, had been given a no-bid contract to run the second most lucrative motor vehicle fee office in Missouri, located in Gladstone. As the fee agent, Tracy Graves will gross more than $2.6 million over the next four years of Governor Blunt’s term. US Attorney Todd Graves’ brother-in-law, Todd Bartles, was also awarded a $1 million no-bid contract to run the Sugar Creek Motor Vehicle Fee Office.

...............

Read the article to see what the penalties to the Executives were--settled w/o a trial or jail time.

================
SEC Charges Tenet Healthcare Corporation and Four Former Senior Executives With Concealing Scheme to Meet Earnings Targets by Exploiting Medicare System
Tenet Healthcare Corporation Agrees to Pay $10 Million Penalty to Settle Charges
http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2007/2007-60.htm

Washington, D.C., April 2, 2007 — The Securities and Exchange Commission today filed civil fraud charges in federal district court against Tenet Healthcare Corporation and its former chief financial officer and co-president, its former chief operating officer and co-president, its former general counsel and chief compliance officer, and its former chief accounting officer for failing to disclose to investors that Tenet's strong earnings growth from 1999 to 2002 was driven largely by its exploitation of a loophole in the Medicare reimbursement system. ... the market value of Tenet's stock plunged by over $11 billion.

.... Tenet agreed to pay a civil penalty of $10 million. ... Without admitting or denying the allegations in the SEC's complaint, Tenet also agreed to be permanently enjoined from violating the antifraud, reporting, and recordkeeping provisions of the federal securities laws.

.... SEC's complaint names Thomas B. Mackey, age 58, of Keswick, Va., Tenet's former chief operating officer and co-president; Christi R. Sulzbach, age 52, of Santa Barbara, Calif., the former general counsel and chief compliance officer; David L. Dennis, age 58, of Los Angeles, the former chief financial officer and co-president; and Raymond L. Mathiasen, age 63, of Los Angeles, the former chief accounting officer. ...

...On March 30, 2006, the Commission charged three of Tenet's outside auditors with improperly changing audit work papers in connection with the audit completed during the period of the defendants' scheme. See http://sec.gov/news/press/2006-45.htm

SEC Charges Three Former KPMG Auditors for Altering Audit Working Papers
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2006-45.htm

Washington, D.C., March 30, 2006 — The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced settled administrative actions finding improper professional conduct by a former KPMG engagement partner and senior manager for failing properly to complete the audit of Tenet Healthcare Corporation's fiscal year 2002 financial statements and for making after-the-fact modifications to the audit working papers ... the improper modifications included adding substantive comments to the working papers, backdating documents, and creating audit documentation after the fact. .... certain of the improper modifications occurred even after the issuance of a subpoena to KPMG by Commission investigators.

The Commission's orders charge Clete D. Madden, age 45, of Dallas, Texas, the KPMG partner in charge of the Tenet audit; David L. Huffman, age 40, of Apopka, Fla., the KPMG senior manager on the Tenet audit; and Aron R. Carr, age 30, of Dallas, Texas, a former KPMG manager. Without admitting or denying the Commission's findings, Madden, Huffman, and Carr settled the SEC's charges by agreeing to be denied the privilege of appearing or practicing before the Commission as accountants. ....

..... Tenet had been exploiting the Medicare program through an aggressive pricing strategy designed to trigger an increase in outlier payments.

.... the audit team spent over 500 hours altering more than 350 working papers..... Madden, Huffman, and Carr engaged in improper professional conduct ... in repeated instances of unreasonable conduct, each resulting in a violation of applicable professional standards.... by modifying the working papers after learning about the government investigations into Tenet, all three former auditors engaged in highly unreasonable conduct in circumstances in which they knew, or should have known, that heightened scrutiny was warranted.

you need to get this stuff to Josh..

great job transfering all this stuff to new thread!! and putting it all in order!!

i am impressed!! !!

fly:applause: :woohoo: :applause: :woohoo: :patriot:

Fair Use limits restrict how much of this article I can copy and paste. There is a much wider story with compensation, political connections, and more. See also link above, re BUSH Pioneer Barbakow.
========================
Insider trading
July 2003 by Michael Wynne
http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/dissent/documents/health/tenet_misc.html#Insider%20trading

.... Barbakow was paid vast sums in salary, bonuses, options and even in additional pension entitlements. Remaining senior executives wallowed in their big bonuses. This multimillion dollar piggery incensed the underpaid nurses ......

.... Corporate executives also have a canny ability to take up their options and sell shares only a short time before they claim to have become aware of adverse circumstances which cause company shares to plunge.....

Mr. Barbakow made $111 million by exercising stock options in January. Mr. Mackey, one of the men recently forced out, made $9.9 million last month, before the bad news started to break.

..... some Tenet directors and senior management exercised stock options. On Oct. 4, for example, Thomas B. Mackey, Tenet's chief operating officer, exercised options on 277,500 shares at $51.50, grossing about $10 million. ....

CEOs' fat checks belie troubled times
By Gary Strauss, USA TODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/money/companies/management/2002-09-30-cover-cms.htm

Stock prices may still be down, but CEO pay continues to rise.

If early 2002 proxy statements are a barometer, the disconnect between executive compensation and performance remains wide. While average worker salaries are rising just 3.6%, many CEOs are getting double-digit salary increases, fat bonuses, large stock option grants and lavish perks more reminiscent of the bull market 1990s .....

...Among 2002 compensation packages:

* Procter & Gamble CEO Alan Lafley, $87.8 million. ...
* Symantec CEO John Thompson, $66.2 million. ....
* General Mills CEO Steve Sanger, $62.8 million. ...
* Tenet Healthcare CEO Jeffrey Barbakow, $143 million. Barbakow gained $111 million exercising stock options, and he received fresh options worth up to $26.4 million. "This was his first stock option exercise since he became CEO in 1993," says Tenet spokesman Harry Anderson....

................

Tenet to Settle Medicare-related Suits
Former chairman and chief executive officer Jeffrey C. Barbakow will contribute $1 million of his own funds,
and former chief operating officer Thomas B. Mackey will pay $500,000.
Stephen Taub, CFO.com - January 12, 2006
http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/5402177?f=related

Tenet Healthcare Corp. has agreed to pay $215 million to settle two lawsuits accusing the company of fraud. The cases alleged that Tenet and a number of former officers and directors made or were responsible for false and misleading statements concerning Medicare payments and other issues.

The agreements would settle federal securities class-action lawsuits brought in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles and a shareholder derivative action in California Superior Court in Santa Barbara. .....

.....Bloomberg noted that the Department of Justice, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Department of Health and Human Services are investigating charges of misconduct in billing and recruitment of doctors by Tenet.

It also pointed out that a jury is currently deliberating in a retrial involving charges that Tenet's Alvarado Medical Center offered to pay the relocation expenses for doctors to encourage them to refer patients under government programs.

Am I the only one wondering how all these things seem to simply "go away" with settlements.
Don't we have a Department of Justice somewhere?? maybe?? perhaps?? fighting white-collar crime?

Something "Pioneering" about all this?

=================
Tenet Settles Tax Dispute with IRS
One issue remains unresolved as health-care company agrees to pay back taxes.
Stephen Taub, CFO.com - November 22, 2006
http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/8313599?f=related

Tenet Healthcare says it has agreed to pay $80 million to partially settle a dispute with the Internal Revenue Service stemming from the audit of its tax returns for fiscal years 1995 through 1997. The company, which owns and operates acute-care hospitals and related health-care services, says the settlement will not have a material effect on income from continuing or discontinued operations after taking into account the impact of the deferred tax valuation allowance. ....

.......The tax dispute is unrelated to the company's decision made earlier this year to restate its financial results for the four years ended in 2003 and the seven months ended December 31, 2002, which stemmed from an investigation disclosed the prior year regarding contractual allowances for managed-care contracts.

IN RE TENET HEALTHCARE CORPORATION Lead Case No. 01098905
BACKGROUND OF THE LITIGATION
http://www.gardencitygroup.com/cases/pdf/TDL/TDLNotice.pdf

Dated: March 6, 2006

1. Beginning on November 12, 2002, several derivative actions were filed in this Court alleging that certain of Tenet's current and former officers and/or directors had violated, among other things, their fiduciary obligations to Tenet and its shareholders. On March 13, 2003, the Court consolidated the lawsuits and approved the motion of plaintiffs Bob Lankford and James Milite to have their respective counsel, Robbins Umeda & Fink, LLP and Faruqi & Faruqi, LLP, appointed plaintiffs' co-lead counsel ("Plaintiffs' Co-Lead Counsel").

2. On March 4, 2003, Plaintiffs' Co-Lead Counsel filed the Consolidated Derivative Complaint for Violations of California Corporations Code, Breach of Fiduciary Duty, Gross Mismanagement, Waste of Corporate Assets, Abuse of Control and Unjust Enrichment (the "Complaint"). Defendants named in the Complaint were Jeffrey C. Barbakow, Bernice B. Bratter, Sanford Cloud, Jr., Maurice J. DeWald, Van B. Honeycutt, J. Robert Kerrey, Lester B. Korn, Lawrence Biondi, S.J., Floyd D. Loop, Monica C. Lozano, Michael H. Focht, Sr., Thomas B. Mackey, Raymond L. Mathiasen, Christi R. Sulzbach, David L. Dennis and Nominal Defendant Tenet (collectively the "Defendants"). The Complaint alleged, inter alia, that the Individual Defendants damaged Tenet because they breached their fiduciary duties by failing to properly monitor, investigate and oversee Tenet's patient procedures and Tenet's receipt of outlier payments from Medicare. The Complaint further alleged that the Individual Defendants failed to monitor or investigate a scheme to cause patients to undergo unnecessary invasive procedures and failed to monitor Tenet's accounting and financial disclosure practices.

...

4. On July 7, 2004, the Court partially lifted the Stay allowing Plaintiffs' Co-Lead Counsel to receive copies of all documents produced by Defendants to plaintiffs in the Federal Securities Action.

5. Beginning in February 2005, Plaintiffs' Co-Lead Counsel received and reviewed millions of pages of documents produced by Defendants.

6. On September 27, 2005, the Court further lifted the stay allowing Plaintiffs' Co-Lead Counsel to go ahead with the depositions of defendants Biondi, Loop and Lozano. The Court also ordered that Plaintiffs' Co-Lead Counsel would be permitted to attend all depositions scheduled in the Federal Securities Action.

7. On August 24, 2005, Plaintiffs' Co-Lead Counsel made a demand on Defendants setting forth terms on which the Derivative Action could be settled.

8. On January 6, 2006, Plaintiffs' Co-Lead Counsel and Defendants' counsel engaged in negotiations, assisted by retired California Court of Appeal Judge and Justice Pro Tem of the California Supreme Court, The Honorable Nat Agliano, as mediator, leading to the settlement set forth herein.

III. TERMS OF THE SETTLEMENT
1. In full and complete settlement of the Released Claims (as defined below), and subject to the terms and conditions of the Stipulation, Defendants have agreed to the following:

A. Monetary Compensation
Monetary Contribution. The Defendants will cause $51,500,000 to be paid to Tenet ("Settlement Fund"). The Settlement Fund shall be funded as follows: (i) Fifty Million dollars ($50,000,000) from insurance carriers of Tenet and the Individual Defendants ("Insurance Carriers"); (ii) Five Hundred Thousand dollars ($500,000) from Defendant Thomas B. Mackey; and (iii) One Million dollars ($1,000,000) from Defendant Jeffrey C. Barbakow (collectively "the Payors"). ........................

History from the sharholder's Committee's Perspective:

============================
Greed, Scandal & Wrongful Deaths at Tenet Healthcare Corp.
January 31, 2005 - http://www.tenetshareholdercommittee.org/images/Articles/pdf/part_one.pdf

Part 1: Past &Present Scandals
Tenet Healthcare – Repeat Offender

Until May 2003, when he was pressured to resign his position as the highestpaid
CEO in the United States1, amidst the tumult of another corporate health care
scandal, Jeffrey C. Barbakow said that the lowest and darkest point for National
Medical Enterprises (“NME”), later Tenet Healthcare Corporation (“Tenet” or, the
“Company”), was that day in August 1993 when some 600 agents from the FBI and
other Federal healthcare regulatory agencies raided twelve (12) NME facilities
nationwide, including NME’s corporate headquarters. .................

Like Icarus, Tenet Flew Too Close to the Sun

To unsuspecting investors, the initiatives and strategies repeatedly touted by
Barbakow, as highlighted above, and implemented by Barbakow, Fetter, Mackey,
Sulzbach, Dennis and Schochet were producing, seemingly, impressive financial
results. Tenet’s stock closed at an all time high of $52.50 per share on October 3,
2002, ironically just one day after Ken Weakley made his first inquiry about
Medicare outliers.............

Barbakow decided not to stand for re-election to the Board in April, 2003
amidst the crisis .... Tenet could owe the Federal Government nearly $6 billion for its abuse of
Medicare. On May 27, 2003 he also resigned .... But he stayed long enough to hit pay dirt.
.... his compensation for FY 2003 ... was an outrageous $116.7 million.
He was the highest paid CEO in America. Over the last 6 years of his tenure he
averaged $22 million and shareholders earned a 6 year annual return of 0%,...

........... On November 14, 2002 the stock closed at $15.56 per share.....

This lenghty and detailed article is no longer available at the Wall Street Journal online:

=========================
Hospital With Fraudulent Psychiatric Connection Revealed as Still Dirty!

Tenet Reaped Outsize Gains From Flaw in Medicare System
By RHONDA L. RUNDLE and ANNA WILDE MATHEWS
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
http://www.happinessonline.org/MoralCode/TakeCareOfYourself/p3.htm


The disclosure of pumped-up Medicare revenue at Tenet Healthcare Corp., the nation's second-largest publicly traded hospital company, has exposed a flaw in the Medicare system: By raising rates sharply, Tenet hospitals triggered an obscure mechanism that automatically boosted their payments.

.........Mr. Barbakow, who was brought in to clean up Tenet nine years ago after its predecessor company, National Medical Enterprises Inc., was nearly destroyed by criminal fraud charges against its psychiatric hospitals, which it later sold. .....

.......The impact of the stepped-up outlier payments on Tenet was enormous. Those payments increased to $763 million in fiscal 2002, up from $351 million two years earlier. Almost two-thirds of the 2002 number -- $481 million -- came from Tenet hospitals that benefited from the statewide average multiplier. ....

NATIONAL MEDICAL ENTERPRISES ( NME) ..IN THE 1980'S AND EARLY 90'S

NME owned psychiatric hospitals and engaged in a horrible sceme using children as their money maker..they would take children away from their parents and use the children until medical benefits dried up!!
The shrinks and phychologists would keep the kids in the hospitals charging 100-150 a day ..the docs then paid back the administraitors by making sure the kids stayed " in the hospital until every penny of their insurance was exhausted"

most of the kids went into the hospitals without a doctors referral..
NME RAN HOTLINES .. and one of the hotlines got $155,000.00 in one month!!

NME became Tenet hospitals.with almost the same cast of characters after being basically shut down in Texas by the US Attorney at the time.



fly

http://www.texaskaos.com

Remember, the greatest conspiracy is that there is no conspiracy.

It is always about money. And a quick gestalt view of the scandal will make it easier to see.

So let's follow a couple money trails, and why Carole Lam would have been fired:

Trail 1
Defense Funds ->
Rep. Duke Cunningham ->
Brent Wilkes ->
Wilkes Corporation ->
Perfect Wave Technologies ->
Texans for a Republican Majority ->
Tom DeLay ->
Republican National Committee ->
Abramoff's 60
(including Texas candidates, this trail was exposed because they stupidly sent the check for the same exact amount back and forth. Nice.)

Trail 2 (loopy style!)

Defense Funds ->
Rep. Duke Cunningham ->
Brent Wilkes ->
Wilkes Corporation ->
Perfect Wave Technologies ->
Alexander Strategy Group ->
Christine DeLay ->
Rep. Duke Cunningham ->
Navy Contract (Defense Funds ->
Rep. Duke Cunningham ->
Brent Wilkes ->
Wilkes Corporation ->
Perfect Wave Technologies ->
Alexander Strategy Group ->
Christine DeLay ->
Rep. Duke Cunningham ->
Navy Contract (Defense Funds) ->
(repeat force feedback loop till exposed, side feed over flow to RNC)
(This trail was exposed because of antics in Trail 1)

A trail less traveled will also include MZM Inc.

At the end of the day, bad. But while we go after Fredo, the fact that defense funds in a time of war were cleverly laundered into the campaign coffers of Republican candidates is the true story.

So as long Alberto maintains himself as the center of the controversy, I am with President Bush, he is doing his job. Because can you imagine the wrath of the American people if they found out we are short on money for the war because the Republicans have been filtering said defense funds to get themselves re-elected to, well, filter yet more defense funds?

That is why Carol Lam was fired, with the others to add cover, because this is one the worst scandals in American political history, double whammyed by the fact it was done in the time of war.

Google the above for your references, it is all out there, plain as day, but we couldn't see the forest because of the trees.
<snip>

IN PLAIN SIGHT! Hope this adds to the research.

just send the link to this here at du and ask him to look at this!!

talk@talkingpointsmemo.com

The Subcommittee on Antitrust, Business Rights, and Competition has this in testimony from 2004:

"SEIU is concerned that questionable practices by the nation’s largest
GPO, Novation, lead to rising costs in the health care supply chain,
while at the same time limiting provider choices in a way that risks the
safety of both health care workers and their patients....."

I'm more concerned that we are showing which cards the committee has!

Corporate Research E-Letter No. 31, January 2003
CORPORATE CODE BLUE? - THE CRISIS OF THE FOR-PROFIT HOSPITAL INDUSTRY
by Philip Mattera
http://www.corp-research.org/archives/jan03.htm

These should be encouraging times for the hospital business. The new Senate Majority Leader, physician Bill Frist, is a member of the family that pioneered the modern for-profit hospital sector ....

Yet whatever good news arises has to compete with headlines about federal investigations, whistleblower lawsuits, multi-million-dollar fines and other features of a series of scandals that have characterized the industry for more than a decade.... cheating the federal government ...

Recent developments include a $631 million payment by industry leader HCA Inc. to settle the latest round of fraud charges brought by the Justice Department. This came just two years after the company agreed to pay the feds $840 million.

Tenet Healthcare, the industry’s number two, agreed last June to pay $55 million to settle civil fraud charges, then saw its stock plunge more than 50 percent amid reports of a new investigation of its aggressive Medicare billing practices. The Justice Department is now suing Tenet for up to $323 million in damages. The company ... is also facing un uproar over a report released by the California Nurses Association which found that Tenet was taking an average markup of more than 700 percent on drugs .....

About the only place Tenet has gotten support is from the Neanderthal conservatives of the Wall Street Journal editorial page.....

=================================
HCA - Medicare criminal fraud investigation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Frist

Hospital Corporation of America was the subject of a decade-long Federal investigation into double-bookkeeping and suspected criminal fraud involving the billing of Medicare, Medicaid, and Tricare (the federal program that provides health insurance to members of the military and their families). During this period no one in the Frist family had any executive position in HCA. HCA has paid a total of $1.7 billion in fines, the largest fraud settlement in U.S. history. Shortly after Frist assumed his position as Senate Majority Leader, a final fine of $631 million was assessed and the ongoing Justice Department investigation into HCA was dropped. Rick Scott, who had been hired to run the company after Frist's brother's retirement, quickly left the company. Frist's brother, a billionaire, returned to HCA to get the company back on track; in addition, HCA was allowed to continue its Medicare contracts.
<http://www.laweekly.com/ink/03/08/news-ireland.php>
<http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2000/12/14/national/main257330.shtml> ..........

Insider trading allegations and the SEC Investigations

On September 20, 2005, the Associated Press reported that Frist sold his HCA shares, which had been in a blind trust, two weeks before the company announced that earnings would not meet expectations, which caused a substantial drop in the share price..... The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York issued subpoenas to investigate the sale, and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission began an investigation. In September 2005, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, named Frist as one of the thirteen most "corrupt" members of Congress, and filed a complaint with the Senate Ethics Committee calling for an investigation of the stock sale, an alleged cover-up, and an allegedly mishandled disclosure of a campaign loan. ... In April 2007, he was exonerated by the SEC and the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District of New York.
<http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2006/11/29/frist-decides-against-%e2%80%9908-presidential-bid/>

Company run by Frist's brother made $630m deal two days before he announced he would be leader
John Byrne
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Family_company_of_Senate_leader_made_0929.html

(HCA) settled a massive Medicare fraud lawsuit for $630 million.... as Frist (R-TN) secured the necessary votes to assume the Senate's top post.

... top HCA executives were scheduled to be deposed the following month ... Given that the Justice Department had been investigating HCA since 1993 -- some 120 months -- the coincidence of a settlement date so close to Frist's leadership election is striking.....

... the company was plagued by allegations of fraud,... in 1997, federal agents raided the company's El Paso operations. The following year, the Securities and Exchange Commission began investigating ... Shareholders and insurers then began suing ....

By 1999, eleven states were involved in litigation....

The fraud investigation involved 30 U.S. attorneys' offices, 22 FBI field offices, inspectors general from the Health and Human Service Department and the Office of Personnel Management, Defense Department investigators and state fraud units.

....when the settlement was finally approved, Republican senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), asserted that the $2.7 billion deal hardly covered the awesome fraud perpetuated by HCA.

"I had to badger the Justice Department to see the math in this case,” Grassley remarked. "At the last minute, the Justice Department agreed to show my investigators why this settlement was the best the government could do. There's no way to know exactly how much HCA pocketed. This case is so complicated, and so huge, that no one will ever know exactly how much HCA took. This case is troubling because it shows how one company, with unbridled greed, systematically defrauded the government's health care programs."

The Medicare fraud and the decay of American democracy
By David Walsh
9 December 2003
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/dec2003/medi-d09.shtml

George W. Bush signed the Medicare reform bill amid great fanfare at a ceremony December 8 in Washington D.C. According to the Los Angeles Times, “The ceremony was something of a holiday season party for the legislation’s Republican supporters and leading figures in the health care industry.”

The passage of this bill and its signing into law represent a devastating exposure of the state of American “democracy” in 2003.

The new bill, passed by Congress last month, marks a significant step toward privatizing and ultimately dismantling Medicare. It places prescription drug coverage for senior citizens entirely in the hands of private insurance companies and health care plans, forbids the government from negotiating drug prices, blocks the importation of cheaper drugs from Canada, and subsidizes private health plans and insurers to the tune of tens of billions of dollars.

.....................

Florida Files Racketeering Charges Against Tenet
March 4, 2005
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2005/fl_tenet.html

Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist has sued Tenet Healthcare for improperly inflating charges for medical procedures to the detriment of Florida public hospitals.... in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, alleges that Tenet violated the federal and Florida Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Acts by falsely inflating its charges to obtain reimbursements from a Medicare fund.

........Medicare rules require that charges must be reasonably and consistently related to costs of providing the services. When Tenet artificially inflated its charges, its "costs" increased on paper, but not in fact......

.......Attorney General seeks damages estimated to be in the millions of dollars, plus fees and costs. Once the amount of actual damages is determined, it could be enhanced up to triple damages under the RICO law......Tenet has been the subject of numerous federal investigations, concerning an array of allegations including cost reporting fraud, upcoding, overbilling, duplicate billing, kickbacks, providing medically unnecessary services, misrepresenting services, falsifying medical records, billing for services not rendered, providing poor quality of care, and patient abuse.

In addition to the racketeering charges, Tenet is also charged with violating Florida's Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act and unjust enrichment.

Suits Accuse Tenet of $1B Medicare Racketeering Scheme
By ROBERT WOODMAN MCSHERRY, Andrews Publications Staff Writer
http://news.findlaw.com/andrews/h/hcf/20050406/20050406tenet.html

Two civil complaints filed in Florida federal court charge Tenet Healthcare Corp. with operating a racketeering scheme that bilked the Medicare program of more than $1 billion and cost legitimate health care providers millions of dollars.

One of the lawsuits is headed by the Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist and has 13 hospital plaintiffs, while the other is a proposed class action by Boca Raton Community Hospital on behalf of hospitals nationwide participating in the Medicare program.

.............The alleged scheme, which took in more than $1 billion, also inflated the government's outlier assessment system and its consequent costs to the hospital plaintiffs, the suits say.

The plaintiffs in both cases want a jury trial and are seeking disgorgement of ill-gotten gains and unspecified damages amounts, which can be trebled under the racketeering laws.

===================
Boca Raton Community Hospital Inc. v. Tenet Healthcare Corp., No. 05-CV-80183, complaint filed (S.D. Fla., Miami Mar. 2, 2005).
Health Care Fraud Litigation Reporter
Volume 10, Issue 10 - http://findlaw.west.thomson.com/product/40211137/product.asp
04/06/2005

:mad:

Looks like we have the rooster watching the henhouse, eh?

Tenet and state settle lawsuit over billings for $7 million
By Glenn Singer, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, February 22, 2006
http://www.tilrc.org/docs/0306tenet.htm


Tenet Healthcare Corp., which operates 15 hospitals in South Florida, will pay $7 million to the state to settle a civil lawsuit and end two investigations into its government billings for care of the needy.

The agreement with Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist resolves a suit filed in March that accused Dallas-based Tenet of inflating Medicare reimbursement claims. Thirteen public hospitals or hospital systems -- including the North Broward Hospital District and South Broward Hospital District -- joined the suit and will share in the settlement with South Florida's largest hospital operator.

The Florida Medicaid Fraud Control Unit will end two investigations into Tenet's Medicaid billings, one for psychiatric patients taken to Florida Medical Center in Fort Lauderdale, according to settlement documents released Tuesday.

"We are pleased by our cooperative dialogue with Attorney General Crist that has resulted in a fair and reasonable resolution," Tenet General Counsel Peter Urbanowicz said. Tenet, the second largest U.S. hospital chain after HCA Inc., still faces a proposed class-action suit by Boca Raton Community Hospital and other private acute-care medical centers.

The settlement allows Tenet to avoid a trial in U.S. District Court in Miami, where Crist had planned to seek triple damages for the state. Florida's suit claimed Tenet hospitals nationwide improperly took $1 billion from Medicare, and the $7 million represents full restitution for the state's share, said JoAnn Carrin, a spokeswoman for Crist...........................

Tenet Healthcare: We're Watching YOU :(
Submitted by ravencroft on Thu, 2006-06-15 10:48. Fort Mill Hospital Debate
http://community.heraldonline.com/?q=tenet_healthcare_watching_you


After Alvarado: More Trouble Ahead?

While the San Diego criminal trials focused exclusively on Alvarado, physician relocation issues at nineteen other current or former Tenet hospitals are the subject of federal criminal or civil investigations, subpoenas or requests for documents.

U.S. Attorney Lam’s press release today hints at more trouble for Tenet on other fronts as well, including the much-rumored “global settlement" talks underway in Washington. Ms. Lam pointedly noted that from 1994 to 1999, Tenet operated under a Corporate Integrity Agreement—itself the result of the company pleading out to earlier wrongdoing—and that “most of the events at issue at Alvarado Hospital occurred during the period of time the hospital was operating under the Corporate Integrity Agreement." Tenet’s high-priced legal fixers are going to look pretty silly making the argument for a new global settlement at the same time Justice Department lawyers are noting the company’s apparent violations of the earlier settlement.

...................

MANT COMMENTS..........

Tenet was facing, on May 10, a (quoting Kyle Sampson's May 11 e-mail) "real problem we have right now with Carol Lam"
=================
May 10, 2006
HHS Seeks to Knock Out San Diego Hospital
http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/whitecollarcrime_blog/2006/05/hhs_seeks_to_kn.html

The Office of the Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services is seeking the ultimate punishment against a San Diego hospital by seeking to bar it from participating in federal healthcare programs, most importantly Medicare and Medicaid. An OIG release (here) states that the Department has issued a notice to Alvarado Hospital Medical Center and its corporate parent, Tenet HealthSystems Hospitals, Inc., that it is seeking the bar because of alleged illegal kickbacks paid to doctors in exchange for patient referrals. Alvarado and its CEO have been tried twice on criminal anti-kickback and fraud charges in federal court in San Diego, and a hung jury resulted in mistrials both times. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of California is considering whether to try the defendants again, but in the meantime HHS has acted to seek the "nuclear option" in healthcare that would likely cause the hospital to go out of business. ...................

=======================
Office of Inspector General
For Immediate Release Washington, D.C. 20201
May 17, 2006

Tenet Agrees to Divest Alvarado Hospital

Inspector General Daniel R. Levinson announced today that the Office of Inspector General (OIG) of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Tenet Healthcare Corporation reached an agreement concerning Tenet’s divestiture of Alvarado Hospital Medical Center (Alvarado). This agreement resolves OIG’s possible exclusion of Alvarado from participation in Medicare and all other Federal health care programs.

On May 8, 2006, OIG notified Tenet that OIG intended to propose to exclude Alvarado based on Alvarado’s alleged payment of kickbacks to physicians. Alvarado had 30 days from that prior notice to submit to OIG documentary evidence and written argument concerning the proposed exclusion. The OIG would have considered any materials submitted by Tenet when determining whether to propose an exclusion. If OIG had proposed an exclusion, Tenet would have had the right to an administrative appeal prior to the exclusion going into effect. The agreement reached today allows Tenet to sell Alvarado prior to OIG initiating an exclusion of the hospital.........

=============================
Tenet Shows It Knows When to Fold 'Em - May 18, 2006
http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/whitecollarcrime_blog/2006/05/tenet_shows_it_.html

The Department of Health & Human Services' Office of the Inspector General tried to wipe out Alvarado Hospital in San Diego by initiating a proceeding to bar it from participating in federal healthcare programs, a death sentence for any provider in the field .... Tenet Healthcare Corp, Alvarado's corporate owner, decided to avoid a nasty fight by agreeing to divest itself of the hospital, which appears to have satisfied OIG because the agency has now dropped its threat to exclude Alvarado from the federal programs. ......

Putting Kenny Rogers' advice to good use likely saved both sides from a drawn-out legal battle that Tenet probably could not win without expending significant resources. The question now is whether this will also resolve the criminal charges against the hospital and its former CEO, a case that has been tried twice and resulted in two hung juries (see below) (ph)

UPDATE: In addition to the HHS announcement, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of California announced (press release here) that it has reached a settlement with Tenet in which the company will pay a $21 million civil penalty, and the government will not pursue a third trial on the charges against Alvarado and its former CEO. (ph)

================================
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

Tenet's Tight Spot by Melissa Davis
Senior Writer
May 9, 2006 1:52 PM EDT
http://www.thestreet.com/stocks/healthcare/10284542.html

Tenet Healthcare's ... turnaround took an unexpected detour Monday.

Investors have been rooting for the hospital chain to shake its legal headaches. But they got bad news Monday, when the government threatened to bar a Tenet hospital from federal insurance payments.

The Office of Inspector General on Monday laid out plans to bar Tenet's Alvarado Hospital Medical Center in San Diego from treating patients covered by Medicare and other federal insurance programs. The rare threat, if carried out, would be a virtual death sentence for Alvarado.

The Justice Department ..... continues to investigate other Tenet facilities suspected of similar misconduct. ......

Mission Impossible for Prosecutors in Tenet Alvarado Case: What Does the Recent Mistrial Mean for Tenet and Other Providers?
by Olabisi A. Onisile1, an associate in the Washington, DC office of Porter Wright Morris & Arthur LLP.
Ms. Onisile represents healthcare providers and others in the area of white collar criminal defense, compliance, and commercial litigation.
http://www.abanet.org/health/esource/vol2no9/onisile.html


On April 4, 2006, after 62 days of deliberation, a second mistrial was declared in the illegal-kickback trial of Alvarado Hospital Medical Center, its former chief executive, and the hospital’s parent company, Tenet HealthSystem Hospitals, Inc. (“Tenet” or “Alvarado”).2 The case against Tenet started in 2003 with a multi-count federal indictment related to payments made by Alvarado under physician relocation agreements .... funneling millions of dollars to doctors ......

The Medicare and Medicaid Anti-Kickback Statute broadly criminalizes the solicitation or receipt of remuneration in connection with items or services for which payment is made under Medicare or Medicaid.5 ........

.........The case is particularly important because the government brought criminal charges against Weinbaum personally,... Weinbaum allegedly oversaw a conspiracy to pay $10 million to more than 100 doctors over a decade in exchange for their referral of patients to the hospital for surgeries and other procedures. .... The government argued that these payments were kickbacks disguised as relocation agreements ....

Despite the disclosure that the jurors were never close to a unanimous decision, it is still unclear whether the government will attempt a third trial against Tenet. According to U.S. Attorney Carol Lam, the government will report to the court as to whether there will be a third trial, which announcement is expected on May 22, 2006......

Alvarado Hospital to be closed or sold in lawsuit settlement
By Greg Gross
UNION-TRIBUNE BREAKING NEWS TEAM
7:52 a.m. May 17, 2006
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/business/20060517-0752-bn17hospit2.html


SAN DIEGO – The company that owns the Alvarado Hospital Medical Center will close or sell the hospital as part of a civil settlement with the federal government over allegations of kickbacks to doctors.......

The settlement averts a third criminal trial over an alleged kickback scheme ......

As part of the agreement, federal officials also agreed to drop any plans to sue Tenet......

Medicare and Medi-Cal supplied more than half of Alvarado's $95.8 million in revenue from patients during the first nine months of 2005 .....

Wednesday's agreement allows Tenet to divest itself of Alvarado before exclusion proceedings begin, according to Daniel R. Levinson, the inspector general of the federal Health and Human Services Department.

.... U.S. Attorney Carol Lam, said in a prepared statement .... “This resolution should restore the public's confidence that physicians are selecting hospitals based on the best medical interests of their patients and not on hidden financial benefits.”

Lam, the top federal prosecutor in San Diego and Imperial counties, prosecuted the second trial herself. She is considered the federal government's top prosecutor of health care fraud and co-wrote the book on the subject: “Prosecuting and Defending Health Care Fraud Cases.”

...................

I wasn't the first to put this in sequence. But, it seems everyone thinks Sampson wasn't referring to Tenet/Alvarado in the May 11 e-mail.
Do the missing e-mails include evidence of what Sampson's May 11 e-mail referenced?

==========================
Legal Affairs
How Prosecutor Lam's Case Was Handled

Listen to this story.
Weekend Edition Sunday, March 18, 2007
Timeline: The Firing of U.S. Attorney Carol Lam
by Scott Horsley
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=8983665

.............

Early May, 2006: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services threatens to cut Medicare and Medicaid funds to San Diego's Alvarado Hospital.

May 11, 2006: Front-page story in the Los Angeles Times reports that the U.S. Attorney's office in Los Angeles is probing ties between House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis (R-CA) and lobbyist Bill Lowery, whose clients include alleged Cunningham co-conspirator Brent Wilkes.

May 11, 2006: General Alberto Gonzales' Chief of Staff Kyle Sampson e-mails a deputy in the White House Counsel's office asking to discuss, "The real problem we have right now with Carol Lam that leads me to conclude that we should have someone ready to be nominated on 11/18, the day her 4-year term expires."

May 12, 2006: FBI agents search the home and office of former CIA Executive Director Kyle Foggo, best friend of alleged Cunningham co-conspirator Brent Wilkes.

......................


February 15, 2007: Carol Lam resigns as U.S. Attorney for San Diego.

McNULTY: USAs, Prosecutors MUST seek approval from senior DoJ officials for corporate fraud decisions

ADD TO TIMELINE right after the firings:
Dec. 7, 2006 - Michael Battle, director of the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, calls seven U.S. Attorneys to ask for their resignations.
Dec. 13, 2006 - McNulty curbs USAs, Prosecutor powers, centralized decision at highest levels, quashes independent corporate fraud decision making.

==============================
DOJ Revises Corporate Fraud Procedures
Jason McLure - Legal Times - December 13, 2006
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1165917921963


Bending to pressure from Congress, a federal judge and a lobbying campaign by business and legal groups, the Justice Department announced a number of immediate changes to its corporate-fraud charging policies Tuesday.
.......
The changes, announced in a Tuesday speech by Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty at a legal conference in New York, are a step back from the government's aggressive anti-fraud prosecution tactics outlined in the so-called Thompson memo, named for former Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson, in 2003.

In the speech, McNulty said the new guidelines were designed to address the "perception, well founded -- or not," that the Justice Department's policies were "chilling attorney-client communications" and hurting the effectiveness of corporate lawyers ...................

For certain types of sensitive attorney-client information, such as the advice a defense attorney gave to the management of a corporation facing a fraud investigation, prosecutors are now required to obtain the approval of the Justice Department's No. 2 official in Washington -- currently McNulty.

For privileged factual material a company has obtained through an internal investigation into an alleged fraud, such as transcripts of interviews with culpable employees, prosecutors will need to obtain the approval of the local U.S. Attorney in their district, who can only sign off on such a request with the approval of the head of the DOJ's Criminal Division in Washington, currently Alice Fisher.

Previously, prosecutors had wide latitude to issue such requests on their own ....

that ties some things together. It discusses Novation, Tenet, Lam and the dead attorneys in Texas. So many aspects...it's hard to know where to start but James ends with this:



http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/4/17/18120/2944

One part that really stood out for me:

"GPOs extract extra profits of $5 billion (£2.6 billion) to $6 billion which legitimately belong to their principal clients, the hospitals" should read these billions belong to "the American People" instead!!

and the answer our K-Street Kongress comes up with is to require everyone to carry insurance, to make everyone pay their share to the racketeers. I've got an idea, let's bust the monopoly and use RICO to clean up the industry.

Bush administration U.S. attorney firings controversy/Firings and activities of fired U.S. attorneys
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Bush_administration_U.S._attorney_firings_controversy/Firings_and_activities_of_fired_U.S._attorneys
This article covers the activities of the Bush administration and the fired U.S. attorneys up until their firings on December 7, 2006. See the main article on Bush administration U.S. attorney firings controversy for a full account of the controversy and investigations:

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Bush_administration_U.S._attorney_firings_controversy
a project of the Sunlight Foundation and the Center for Media & Democracy

Contents

* 1 Chain of events
o 1.1 2006 reauthorization of the Patriot Act
o 1.2 Bush administration fires eight U.S. attorneys
o 1.3 Hearings commence in House and Senate; U.S. Attorneys testify
o 1.4 Attorney General Gonzales testifies
o 1.5 Shifting explanations by White House and Gonzales

.............much more......


============================

VERY COMPREHENSIVE LIST w/long biblio and link list.

And persistence as well, but many times that's what it takes! K&R

OIG NEWS
Office of Inspector General
For Immediate Release
330 Independence Ave., SW.
September 28, 2006
For the full CIA document:
http://oig.hhs.gov/fraud/cia/agreements/TenetCIAFinal.pdf


OIG Executes Tenet Corporate Integrity Agreement
Unprecedented Provisions Include Board of Directors Review

Inspector General Daniel R. Levinson announced today that the Office of Inspector
General (OIG) of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services has reached an agreement
with Tenet Healthcare Corporation on a Corporate Integrity Agreement (CIA). The CIA is part
of Tenet’s resolution of its civil and administrative liability for a wide range of investigated
conduct, including Diagnosis Related Group (DRG) upcoding, improper outlier payments,
kickbacks to physicians, and other fraudulent activities.

“OIG is committed to protecting the integrity of Federal health care programs, and
today’s Corporate Integrity Agreement with Tenet Healthcare Corporation contains
comprehensive and unprecedented provisions designed to prevent future harm to the programs.
OIG expects Tenet to fully comply with the requirements of the Corporate Integrity Agreement,
and we will closely monitor Tenet’s compliance with its terms,” said Inspector General Daniel R.
Levinson.

In June 2006, Tenet agreed to pay over $900 million to the United States to resolve its
liability under the False Claims Act and related authorities. Specifically, the Federal government
had alleged that Tenet submitted claims for payment to Medicare using DRG codes that Tenet
could not support or were improperly assigned to patient records in order to increase
reimbursement to Tenet hospitals. Tenet also allegedly inflated its charges substantially in
excess of any increase in the costs associated with patient care, which resulted in improper
outlier payments.

The CIA, which has a five year term, will cover Tenet, its wholly­owned subsidiaries and
affiliates, and all hospitals and other health care facilities managed or controlled by Tenet.
Under the CIA, Tenet will implement a comprehensive compliance program that includes
corporate, regional, and hospital compliance officers; compliance policies and training; an
employee hotline and reporting mechanism; and mandatory reporting and repayment of
overpayments. In addition, Tenet is required to engage independent review organizations to
review Tenet’s DRG claims, outlier payments, physician relationships, and clinical quality
management.

The CIA also includes unprecedented provisions requiring ....

In consideration of Tenet’s obligations under the CIA, OIG has agreed to release and
refrain from instituting any administrative action seeking exclusion of Tenet from participation
in Medicare, Medicaid, and other Federal health care programs under section 1128(b)(7) of the
Social Security Act for the investigated conduct. ........

Tenet enters corporate integrity agreement
Dallas Business Journal - September 28, 2006
http://albany.bizjournals.com/albany/othercities/dallas/stories/2006/09/25/daily34.html?b=1159156800%5E1352780


Tenet Healthcare Corp. has entered into a corporate integrity agreement as part of its settlement in June with the Department of Justice.

The five-year agreement, made with the Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, establishes yearly training requirements and compliance reviews by independent organizations in certain areas.

The $725 million Justice Department settlement also required Dallas-based Tenet (NYSE: THC) to sell 11 hospitals and waive $175 million in Medicare payments for past services. The settlement ended federal investigations by the Department of Justice and U.S. attorneys into issues regarding Tenet's Medicare billing and physician arrangements.

The corporate integrity agreement requires: ...............

Office of the Inspector General (OIG) Corporate Integrity Agreements
http://www.globalcompliance.com/office-of-inspector-general-oig-cia.html

Situation:

Recent statutory enactments have strengthened and expanded the Office of the Inspector General’s (OIG’s) authority to exclude individuals and entities from participation in Medicare, Medicaid, and other Federal health care programs. The OIG is able to impose civil penalties for misconduct related to Federal health care programs (Sections 1128 and 1128A of the Social Security Act) . The effect of an OIG exclusion is that Federal health care program payment may not be made for any items or services (1) furnished by an excluded individual or entity, or (2) directed or prescribed by an excluded physician.

Program payments will not be made to any entity in which an excluded individual is serving in any capacity, for any services furnished, ordered, or prescribed on or after the effective date of the exclusion. In addition, no payment may be made to any business or facility, e.g., a hospital that submits bills for payment of items or services provided by an excluded party, directly or indirectly. ............

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=%2Fchronicle%2Farchive%2F2002%2F11%2F07%2FMN179618.DTL

Medical sleuths had eyes on Redding hospitals
Heart-surgery rate has been high for years
Sabin Russell, Bill Wallace, Chronicle Staff Writers

Last week's FBI raid on Redding Medical Center has placed an unwanted spotlight on this quiet, rural town -- but it was already well-known to research groups that keep track of unusually high rates of high-tech medical care.

"Oh, yes, we've been aware of Redding for a number of years," said Dr. John Wennberg, director of the Center for the Evaluative Clinical Sciences at the Dartmouth Medical School.

"It's been wild for a long time," said Wennberg, whose research at Dartmouth looks at wide regional differences in the use of costly medical services.

In the mid-1990s, Redding stood out as having the highest rate of heart bypass surgeries among Medicare beneficiaries in the nation. It now is tied for third place with McAllen, Texas; behind Mobile, Ala., and Johnstown, Pa.

The city rankings pool data from all hospitals in a given region. In Redding that would include heart surgeries at both Redding Medical Center and rival Mercy Medical Center. Although Mercy is a similarly sized hospital, it performs only half as many of the heart procedures, according to state records.

The FBI alleges in an affidavit filed in federal court in Sacramento that Redding Medical Center's star heart specialists may have performed unnecessary heart surgeries to defraud Medicare of the fees they collect for their work.

Cardiologist Dr. Chae Hyun Moon, according to the FBI, is ranked second in Northern California for dollars paid by Medicare in that specialty. He was paid $1,635,559 by the federal program during the fiscal year ended in June.

In the previous year, according to the FBI, Moon performed four to five times the number of heart tests, called cardiac catheterizations, as his Northern California peers. Medicare pays Redding area cardiologists $680 per test, the lowest on its nine-step fee scale. A San Francisco cardiologist would be paid $897 for the same test.

Heart surgeon Dr. Fidel Realyvasquez Jr., who also practices at Redding Medical Center and was named in the FBI affidavit, was paid $767,600 during the same period, and ranked first in billings among Northern California physicians in his specialty. These rankings are not normally published, but federal investigators have access to them and released the information in their affidavit.
<snip>

HE THEN HAD DEMENTIA...AND AFTER A YR COMMITTED SUICIDE.

WE DO NOT BELIEVE THE SURGERY WAS NESSESARY.

FLY

it's hard to keep track of them all

McKay: White House likely behind U.S. attorney firings
http://www.komotv.com/news/local/7429101.html

May 9, 2007 at 8:14 PM PDT
By KOMO Staff & News Services
Watch the story = VIDEO

SEATTLE (AP) - Five months after they were fired, three former U.S. attorneys told a law school audience Wednesday they still don't know why they were targeted.

And they don't expect to be illuminated when U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales begins his second round of congressional testimony Thursday.

"I just hope I don't hear the words 'I don't recall' coming from his mouth very often," said David Iglesias, former U.S. attorney in New Mexico.

.........

McKay noted that no one in the Justice Department will admit to selecting him or the others to be terminated, raising the possibility that it was the White House that picked the names.

"I to this day do not know who fired me or why," he said. "To my knowledge, the deputy attorney general, the associate attorney general, their chiefs of staff, Monica Goodling, Kyle Samson nor anyone else will admit to putting any one of us on the list to be fired. Now, that leaves only the white house."

.........

US attorney's demotion halted probe of lobbyist

By Walter F. Roche Jr., Los Angeles Times | August 8, 2005

WASHINGTON -- A US grand jury in Guam opened an investigation of controversial lobbyist Jack Abramoff more than two years ago, but President Bush removed the supervising federal prosecutor, and the probe ended soon after.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/08/08/bush_removal_ended_guam_investigation/

other sources:
Inquiry Into Lobbyist Sputters After Demotion

snip

The acting U.S. attorney was a controversial official in Guam. At the time he was removed, Black was directing a long-term investigation into allegations of public corruption in the administration of then-Gov. Carl Gutierrez. The inquiry produced numerous indictments, including some of the governor's political associates and top aides.

Black also arranged for a security review in the aftermath of Sept. 11 that was seen as a potential threat to loose immigration rules favored by local business leaders. In fact, the study ordered by Black eventually cited substantial security risks in Guam and the Northern Marianas.

Abramoff, who then represented the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, alerted his clients in a memo about the expected report and warned: "It will require some major action from the Hill and a press attack to get this back in the bottle."

The lobbyist also wrote that he and his aides expected to meet in the near future with Justice Department officials, according to Abramoff billing documents released this year by the Marianas government.

A Justice Department spokesman previously dismissed Abramoff's references to meetings with high level department officials as "a lot of bluster to impress a client."

Abramoff also sought expanded lobbying business with the Pacific island governments.

A lawyer for Gutierrez discussed hiring Abramoff to represent Guam's territorial government in 2002 before the grand jury inquiry began. The discussions were held at Abramoff-owned Signature's Restaurant here, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the meeting. They provided details on condition of anonymity.

http://citizensforethics.org/node/24254

...for heuristic purposes;)

This nasty business and the ominous implications, from outright corruption to worse, may explain why there are so many Republicans in Congress demanding that Bush fire Gonzales. There's no conspiracy here, just biz as usual in our nation's capitol (I'm referring to distancing from scandal, not the scandal specifically which I would say is an outlier for most administrations, perhaps not this one).

It's fair to assume that many on Capitol Hill are more than well informed, particularly when they might get burned by a scandal. We can extend that to this situation...word's out probably that

"there are some really dirty pieces of laundry stuffed under the bed. When they come out,all Hell is going to break loose. We can't call foul on the specific scandal right now but we can demand that Gonzo step down for his disgraceful behavior. Then when the you know what hits the fan, we'll be able to say, 'I knew that Gonzo was bad news, that's why I wanted him gone. This is an outrage!'"

This is simiple self preservation, organizational mendacity 101 if I'm right.

Same thing on the Iraq war resolution. I saw many of the facts on DU prior to the vote, facts that would have lead one to believe that Bush was lying through his teeth prior to his speech and the war resolution. I assume that many, most, all on the Hill say the same information or were informed of it prior to the vote. Yet they vote "yea" and it's off to war we go. When things turn bad, what's the new story line: 'I knew that Bush was bad news, that's why I've criticized him so much.'

This is a truly ugly scandal. It reminds me a bit of an 80's scandal (see Elliot Richardson's comments here. Not sure exactly why but when Elliot Richardson smells foul play, people should listen; and they didn't.

Let's see what McClatchy does with this. They're doing great work and this might be their next move.

The Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Antitrust, Business Rights, and Competition, has been hearing testimony about the GPO issue for years now. They are fully aware of the Tenet fraud issue/scandal. How it was handled and settled might be another matter.

One possible scandal within the issue is influence peddling. Like felon Jack Abramoff and Enron's Key Lay, Jeffrey C. Barbakow, ousted CEO and Chair of Tenet Healthcare, is a Bush Pioneer (major donor).

This issue also has geographic/political reach, from South California (fired San diego District USA Carol Lam litigated against Tenet), to Nevada (Tenet is a NV corporation, fired USA is Daniel Bogden), to Missouri (fired USA Todd P. Graves was active in prosecuting Medicare fraud), to Florida (Tenet's $1B Medicare Racketeering Scheme suit), to Bush and Rove's Texas (three fired USA office attorneys, two major prosecutors dead), where Tenet and Novation have corporate headquarters at this time, in the Dallas-Forth Worth area. Missouri, Florida, and Nevada are critical states in the next Presidential election, of course.

=================================
With the Carol Lam investigatory history, we may get a clue about the implication for certain members of Congress, for Cheney, and for the political future. Lam was investigating/prosecuting Tenet and Reps. Duke Cunningham and Jerry Lewis. Involved in this we have bribe money,government contractors, and the CIA. On May 11, 2006, Kyle Sampson wrote in an e-mail to the White House about "the real problem we have right now with Carol Lam...." Lam filed felony charges the day before departing the job. The FBI was investigating Rep. Gary Miller at the time, and Lam would have been in charge of leading that investigation. Lam's investigation included VP Cheney-connected defense contractor, Mitchell Wade. Cunningham and Wade plead guilty to multiple felonies and Wade is now cooperating with prosecutors. (Source: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Bush_administration_U.S._attorney_firings_controversy/Firings_and_activities_of_fired_U.S._attorneys)

Daniel Bogden was investigating the newly elected Governor of Nevada, former-Rep. Jim Gibbons (R-NV), for allegedly accepting unreported gifts and/or payments from a campaign contributor and earmark recipient, Warren Trepp. Gibbons helped Trepp get lucrative government contracts for his Reno-based company eTreppid Technologies LLC. Trepp financially supported then-congressman Gibbons' election campaign. Trepp was chief bond trader for Michael Milken, the "Junk Bond King at Drexel Burnham Lambert. Trepp paid $300 million in fines. Milken was sentenced to 10 years in prison but served less than two. The SEC alleged Trepp had "parked" $366 million in bonds for Reliance insurance company. The SEC waited until 1995 to file a complaint, nine years later, then dismissed charges against Trepp in 1999 (http://www.sec.gov/litigation/aljdec/id115cff.htm). The SEC is in the middle of the Tenet fraud too. Trepp founded Nevada Security Bank.

Around 1999, Trepp became associated with "coingate," involving felon Thomas Noe, who purchased 500,000 shares of Greg Manning at a 36% discount in 2002 from Trepp. Noe was an Ohio Republican party fundraiser convicted of illegally funneling money to the Bush re-election campaign.

In 2004, eTreppid gained a $30 million, five-year no-bid contract from United States Special Operations Command, making ETreppid one of the largest defense contractors.

Source: SEE:
The life and times of Warren G. Trepp
Is the figure at the center of the FBI probe into Nevada's governor a Friend of Jim or a "King of Hearts" ... or both?
http://www.nvtoday.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=246&Itemid=49
By Sherri Cruz - 02/21/07

MORE on Nevada's scandal: February 15, 2007, 8:07 am - Nevada Governor Faces FBI Probe
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2007/02/15/nevada-governor-faces-fbi-probe/
"Federal prosecutors are investigating whether Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons accepted unreported gifts or payments from a company that was awarded secret military contracts when Mr. Gibbons served in Congress.....Trepp sent a reminder to her husband. “Please don’t forget to bring the money you promised Jim and Dawn,” referring to Mr. and Mrs. Gibbons. Minutes later, Mr. Trepp responds, “Don’t you ever send this kind of message to me! Erase this message from your computer right now!” Mr. Gibbons failed to disclose the cruise and travel on Mr. Trepp’s leased private jet, as required by House ethics rules...."

======================
That builds an image of WHY the media/GOP focus is on four ACORNs registering voters in Missouri (those pesky Dems are commiting voter fraud :rofl: RIGHT!). If the focus shifts to sleeze, the 2008 Presidential election could be as good as lost to Republicans.

She's the Great Kahuna of federal prosecutors, she got "the Duke," an icon, and showed him for what he is, a bribe taking, defense compromising criminal whom Lam put behind bars. And with that record, of course she had to go.

Bogden was onto Gibbons for sure. And Gibbons had more problems that had already aired. He kept a an illegal immigrant as a servant and treated her badly:

http://www.lasvegasnow.com/Global/story.asp?s=5585256
The woman, Patricia Pastor Sandoval, says she worked for the Gibbons' for years and the family occasionally made her hide in the basement to keep her illegal status a secret.

This guy is one of the 50 governors.

The media focus on "voter fraud" was a two-fer. First, it justified Voter ID laws and other measures that suppress minority, largely Democratic, voters.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0704/S00464.htm
By pursuing a strategy of promoting voter fraud as a wide spread phenomenon, the authors and supporters of this scheme were trying to influence the votes of tens of thousands of Wisconsin citizens exposed to this effort. This is certainly a corruption of the election process any way you look at it. It is reasonable to assume that many, if not all of those involved knew that intentional voter fraud was very infrequent.

The participants were committing wholesale election fraud in the process of promoting the myth of voter fraud.


Second, as you point out, it was a way to keep the "equal time cuz they're two sides of every issue" press hopping. Have to find those hordes of illegal(s) voters/voting. Disgraceful.

And all the time the upper echelons are using the the ill begotten power of "firing" federal prosecutors to quash investigations and, apparently by your string of connections, hiding that
maneuver under the cloak of tossing non productive "voter fraud" prosecutors.

I must way that they do think up creative, somewhat complex, and totally fantastic story lines to cover business as usual in the world of justice.

Excellent thread! Now lets see if the big boys go on point since, as you confirmed, they know about this. imho, I think that this is too tantalizing to let pass. They'll let it simmer a bit and hit it hard in August or September. Nice run up to the very early primaries.

and there are different scandals at work here: earmarks, Medicare fraud, real estate deals, bribes by lobbyists and government contractors.....

What is the common thread? MONEY. PAYOLA.

Closer attention needed on the relationships of lobbyists, contractors, Pioneers, et.al. to Members of Congress.

X-Post: Eleven Members of Congress Now Under Investigation, PLUS ten former members
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x831278

Number of Fired Prosecutors Grows
Dismissals Began Earlier Than Justice Dept. Has Said

By Amy Goldstein and Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, May 10, 2007; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/09/AR2007050902718.html?hpid=topnews

Graves said he received a telephone call shortly after New Year's Day 2006 from Michael A. Battle, then director of the department's Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys. Graves said Battle told him that department officials wanted to change leadership in the Kansas City office, emphasizing "there are no performance issues."

The characterization -- that Graves was being moved out simply to give someone else a turn -- is practically identical to the explanation that Bud Cummins, the former U.S. attorney in Little Rock, has said he was given last June, when he, too, was asked to leave. He was replaced by a former aide to President Bush's political adviser, Karl Rove. The seven other U.S. attorneys were dismissed on a single day in December.

Graves said his conversation with Battle "made clear to me the fact I was getting a push."

================================
TIMELINE:
Oct. 2004 - Leonard Senerote, antitrust trial attorney, Michael Uhl and Michael Snipes, veteran prosecutors with expertise in white collar fraud and corruption were announced as separating from the Ft. Worth Office of the US Attorney.
Jan. 2006 - Graves pushed out.
Mar. 10, 2006: Graves announced his resignation and leaves the office two weeks later.
Mar. 30, 2006: PATRIOT Act reauthorization allows appointments w/o Senate confirmation.
June 2006 - Corporate Integrity Agreement (CIA) ENDS investigations by DoJ and US Attorneys
Firings of USAs on Dec. 7, 2006

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - DALLAS, TEXAS
http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/txn/PressRel05/roper_investiture_pr.html
Jan. 7, 2005

Chief United States District Judge for the Northern District of Texas, the Honorable A. Joe Fish, administered the Oath of Office for United States Attorney to Richard B. Roper, III during an investiture ceremony held this afternoon in the courtroom of the Honorable United States District Judge Terry R. Means, in the Eldon B. Mahon United States Courthouse in Fort Worth, Texas.

Today's formal ceremony, presided over by Chief Judge Fish, was attended by hundreds of family members and friends, and federal, state and local dignitaries. Guest speakers included Fort Worth attorney Dee Kelly; the Honorable Jane J. Boyle, United States District Judge for the Northern District of Texas and former United States Attorney for the Northern District of Texas; the Honorable Tim Curry, Tarrant County District Attorney; the Honorable Marvin Collins, former United States Attorney for the Northern District of Texas; and the Honorable Louis Sturns, former Judge of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and Tarrant County District Court. ....

...........

United States Attorney Roper was appointed to his post by President George W. Bush upon the recommendation of Senators Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn. Since 1987, Mr. Roper has served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Northern District of Texas, working fourteen years in the Fort Worth office and three years in the Dallas office. ..........

============================
TIMELINE:
July 1, 2004 - Richard B. Roper III sworn as the interim U.S. Attorney (http://www.theshorthorn.com/archive/2004/summer/04-jul-01/n070104-03.html)
Oct. 2004 - Leonard Senerote, antitrust trial attorney, Michael Uhl and Michael Snipes, veteran prosecutors with expertise in white collar fraud and corruption were dismissed from the Ft. Worth Office of the US Attorney.

SENATE CONFIRMS JANE BOYLE FOR JUDGESHIP
WILL FILL VACANT SEAT IN NORTHERN DISTRICT, BASED IN DALLAS
(For immediate release, June 17, 2004)
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?r108:1:./temp/~r108vEQHZX::

WASHINGTON.--The U.S. Senate on Thursday unanimously approved the federal judicial nomination of current U.S. Attorney Jane Boyle to be the U.S. District Judge for the Northern District of Texas. Boyle, 49, will be based in Dallas, and replaces retired Judge Jerry L. Buchmeyer. The Northern District's jurisdiction includes 100 counties.

``Jane Boyle has remarkable experience and knowledge of the law. She has done an outstanding job as U.S. Attorney in Dallas, and I'm confident that she will continue to serve Texas and the nation with excellence,'' Cornyn said. ``She has garnered the respect of her colleagues, those who work for her, and most notably, she has gained the respect of folks from across the political spectrum.''

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, a member of the Judiciary Committee, along with Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, recommended Boyle to President Bush on September 9, 2003. The President nominated Boyle on November 24, 2003, and she was confirmed by the Judiciary Committee on April 1, 2004.

Boyle was appointed by President George W. Bush in 2002 to be U.S. Attorney for the Northern District after a long and distinguished legal career in Texas. Prior to that selection, she served as U.S. Magistrate Judge for the Northern District for twelve years, earning significant judicial experience in the region.

Boyle also worked for a number of years as an Assistant U.S. Attorney and an Assistant District Attorney for Dallas County. She earned a J.D. degree from Southern Methodist University School of Law in 1981 and graduated with honors from The University of Texas at Austin in 1977........

DU Discussion HERE please: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x862846
to KEEP this a compliation thread.

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

"Despite the disclosure that the jurors were never close to a unanimous decision, it is still unclear whether the government will attempt a third trial against Tenet. According to U.S. Attorney Carol Lam, the government will report to the court as to whether there will be a third trial, which announcement is expected on May 22, 2006......"

MUCH MORE >>>>>

=================
May 10, 2006
HHS Seeks to Knock Out San Diego Hospital

"The Office of the Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services is seeking the ultimate punishment against a San Diego hospital by seeking to bar it from participating in federal healthcare programs, most importantly Medicare and Medicaid...."

=================
Release of May 17, 2006 - Office of Inspector General
Tenet Agrees to Divest Alvarado Hospital

Inspector General Daniel R. Levinson announced today that the Office of Inspector General (OIG) of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Tenet Healthcare Corporation reached an agreement concerning Tenet’s divestiture of Alvarado Hospital Medical Center (Alvarado). This agreement resolves OIG’s possible exclusion of Alvarado from participation in Medicare and all other Federal health care programs.

On May 8, 2006, OIG notified Tenet that OIG intended to propose to exclude Alvarado based on Alvarado’s alleged payment of kickbacks to physicians.

................

This is why I was investigating the Lam dismissal before finding the Medicare fraud overlap in Texas, Nevada, Florida, Missouri, and Lam's district, San Diego,

===================
Carol Lam's Firing Clearly Obstruction of Justice
Joseph A. Palermo - 03.29.2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-a-palermo/carol-lams-firing-clearl_b_44568.html

........ Lam, the Yale and Stanford educated former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of California, was abruptly given the axe because she had stumbled upon the old boys' network, and began prosecuting people George W. Bush didn't want to see prosecuted.

First, Ms. Lam, a Republican, secured a conviction against former California Representative, Randy "Duke" Cunningham, the high-flying and completely corrupt defense contract profiteer....

Then Ms. Lam caught the trail of two well-connected associates of Cunningham's...
Wilkes ... the Bush/Cheney finance co-chairman for California ... also involved in the Arnold Schwarzenegger campaign. Wilkes paid off Cunningham with $2.4 million to help his company secure over $80 million in Pentagon contracts.
.... Dusty Foggo helped Wilkes score lucrative contracts for the CIA, and he was charged with fraud in the Cunningham case.

As soon as U.S. Attorney Lam began to secure search warrants against Wilkes and Foggo, Gonzales had her fired.

..... Lam had initiated an investigation of corruption allegations against California Representative Jerry Lewis......

Wilkes' ... limousine service was providing more than just transportation for Dusty, Duke, and their buddies. It has been alleged that Wilkes' company provided high-priced prostitutes to satisfy the carnal pleasures of Cunningham and his well-connected defense and CIA-contractor pals on the taxpayer's dime. ............

BUSH's pick for RNC Chairman hired as Tenet Healthcare lobbyist in 2006 for $360,000.00. About $1,000 a day!!!!
How does this $$ factor into the White House and/or RNC political role in the firings and settlements?

=================================
TENET HEALTHCARE - Lobbyist Summary, 	2006		2005		2004		2003

   Capitol Health Group 		120,000	        120,000	        100,000	        -
   Cathy Abernathy Consultants 		80,000		160,000	        160,000	       160,000
   Landrieu Public Relations 		45,000		150,000	        100,000	       200,000
   Samuels, Marc Blaine			-		-		-		20,000
   Brownstein, Hyatt et al				300,000	        200,000
   Quinn, Gillespie & Assoc 		360,000   	-		-		-

	Totals:				605,000	        730,000	        560,000	       380,000

Capital Health Group - 2006 Total Lobbying Income:        $1,760,000
Cathy Abernathy Consultants - 2006 Total Lobbying Income: $2,320,000 
Quinn, Gillespie & Assoc - 2006 Total Lobbying Income:   $16,840,000
Landrieu Public Relations has only one client, Tenet.

Source: http://www.opensecrets.org/lobbyists/firmsum.asp?txtname=Quinn%2C+Gillespie+%26+Assoc&year=2006

===============================================================================
Quotes and Info from: http://www.citizen.org/documents/Gillespie_June.pdf

Ed Gillespie: The Embedded Lobbyist - Public Citizen Congress Watch - June 2003
New Chairman Brings Corporate Loyalties to Top Job in the GOP

President Bush’s decision to name lobbyist Ed Gillespie as chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC) will give one of Washington’s prominent power-brokers unrivaled access, influence and opportunity to further the interests of his corporate benefactors and his own lobbying firm.

Gillespie Has One Foot in the White House, the Other on K Street

Public Citizen looked at Quinn Gillespie’s efforts on behalf of corporate clients to undercut consumer rights and increase the power of big business.
· Since its founding, the firm has collected $27.4 million in lobbying fees through 2002.
· Enron paid Quinn Gillespie $700,000 in 2001 alone to lobby on the “California energy crisis” and thwart efforts to re-regulate the Western electricity market.
Gillespie channeled $100,000 from Enron and DaimlerChrysler to the 21st Century Energy Project to counter "enviro-leftist propaganda” and promote the administration’s energy plan.

Gillespie’s loyalty to President Bush is undeniable. “If there is anything I can do in any way to help this president, I will do it,” he said ....
But he also has been loyal to Corporate America, which has poured money into his lobbying firm.

Gillespie was an aide to House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-TX), an architect of the Contract With America, RNC communications director, and adviser to Bush’s 2000 campaign and the Florida recount.

From: http://www.opensecrets.org/indivs/search.asp?

Contributor	        Date	        Amount		Recepient
GILLESPIE, CATHERINE H 	8/3/2005	25000		National Republican Senatorial Cmte
GILLESPIE, EDWARD 	2/17/2006	25000		Republican National Cmte
GILLESPIE, CATHERINE H 	6/27/2006	15000		National Republican Senatorial Cmte
GILLESPIE, CATHY 	4/28/2006	5000		Republican National Cmte
GILLESPIE, CATHY	3/25/2006	5000		National Republican Congressional Cmte
GILLESPIE, CATHY 	6/13/2006	2900		Good Government for America
GILLESPIE, ED 	        6/13/2006	2900		Good Government for America
GILLESPIE, EDWARD W 	5/24/2005	2500		Cmte for the Preservation of Capitalism
GILLESPIE, ED 	        10/26/2006	2100		Walsh, James T
GILLESPIE, EDWARD 	3/17/2005	2000		Upton, Fred
GILLESPIE, ED 	        8/1/2006	1000		Taylor, Van
GILLESPIE, CATHY 	9/29/2006	1000		Sweeney, John E
GILLESPIE, CATHY 	10/18/2006	1100		Sweeney, John E
GILLESPIE, CATHY 	6/26/2006	2100		Sweeney, John E
GILLESPIE, ED 	        10/18/2006	2100		Sweeney, John E
GILLESPIE, CATHERINE H  7/26/2005	2000		Steele, Michael
GILLESPIE, CATHY 	8/3/2006	1000		Simmons, Rob
GILLESPIE, CATHERINE H 	9/29/2006	2100		Santorum, Rick
GILLESPIE, CATHY	11/30/2005	2000		Santorum, Rick
GILLESPIE, ED	        11/30/2005	900		Santorum, Rick
GILLESPIE, ED	        11/30/2005	1100		Santorum, Rick
GILLESPIE, EDWARD I 	10/12/2006	900		Santorum, Rick
GILLESPIE, EDWARD I	9/29/2006	900		Santorum, Rick
GILLESPIE, EDWARD I	9/29/2006	1200		Santorum, Rick
GILLESPIE, EDWARD W	5/5/2005	1000		Royce, Ed
GILLESPIE, EDWARD 	5/30/2006	2100		Reynolds, Tom
GILLESPIE, CATHY 	6/16/2005	500		Republican Federal Cmte of Pennsylvania
GILLESPIE, CATHY 	10/7/2005	250		People for Enterprise/Trade/Econ Growth
GILLESPIE, ED 	        9/28/2006	1000		Padgett, Joy
GILLESPIE, ED	        6/3/2005	1000		Milead Fund
GILLESPIE, CATHERINE 	7/21/2005	500		Latham, Tom
GILLESPIE, CATHY 	6/30/2005	1000		LaHood, Ray
GILLESPIE, EDWARD W 	3/20/2006	1000		Kennedy, Mark
GILLESPIE, ED 	        6/30/2005	1500		Keep Our Majority PAC
GILLESPIE, CATHY 	3/15/2006	2000		Kean, Thomas H Jr
GILLESPIE, ED 	        3/15/2006	2000		Kean, Thomas H Jr
GILLESPIE, CATHY 	9/12/2006	1000		Huffman, Steve
GILLESPIE, ED 	        12/16/2005	1000		House Conservatives Fund
GILLESPIE, CATHY 	4/26/2005	250		Hostettler, John
GILLESPIE, CATHY 	3/28/2005	500		Hensarling, Jeb
GILLESPIE, CATHY 	9/19/2005	500		Hensarling, Jeb
GILLESPIE, CATHY 	5/19/2006	2000		Hayworth, J D
GILLESPIE, EDWARD W 	5/19/2006	2000		Hayworth, J D
GILLESPIE, CATHY 	12/20/2005	400		Harris, Katherine
GILLESPIE, CATHY 	5/24/2005	500		Harris, Katherine
GILLESPIE, CATHY 	12/20/2005	1600		Harris, Katherine
GILLESPIE, EDWARD W 	3/6/2006	2000		Harris, Katherine
GILLESPIE, CATHY 	8/2/2006	2000		Hall, Ralph M
GILLESPIE, EDWARD W 	3/16/2006	1000		Gerlach, Jim
GILLESPIE, CATHY 	11/3/2006	2100		Fossella, Vito
GILLESPIE, CATHERINE 	11/27/2006	2100		Ferguson, Mike
GILLESPIE, EDWARD 	11/2/2006	2100		Ferguson, Mike
GILLESPIE, EDWARD 	11/27/2006	2100		Ferguson, Mike
GILLESPIE, CATHY 	10/19/2005	500		Feldkamp, James Lee
GILLESPIE, CATHY 	11/22/2005	1500		Federal Victory Fund
GILLESPIE, ED 	        12/7/2006	1000		Fairfax County Republican Cmte
GILLESPIE, CATHY 	6/22/2006	2100		Dole, Elizabeth
GILLESPIE, EDWARD W 	5/2/2006	2100		DeWine, Mike
GILLESPIE, ED 	        12/14/2005	1000		Defend America PAC
GILLESPIE, ED	        9/22/2006	500		Davis, Tom
GILLESPIE, CATHY 	11/17/2005	1000		Cornyn, John
GILLESPIE, CATHERINE H 	9/26/2006	1000		Chocola, Chris
GILLESPIE, EDWARD 	6/29/2005	2000		Chafee, Lincoln D
GILLESPIE, CATHY 	7/26/2006	1000		Chabot, Steve
GILLESPIE, CATHY 	6/30/2005	2000		Bryant, Ed
GILLESPIE, EDWARD W 	9/27/2006	1000		Bonilla, Henry
GILLESPIE, EDWARD W 	5/24/2006	1000		Blackburn, Marsha
GILLESPIE, CATHY 	8/11/2005	1000		Barton, Joe
GILLESPIE, ED 	        11/1/2006	250		ASCAP
GILLESPIE, CATHY 	7/23/2005	2009		Allen, George
GILLESPIE, CATHY 	6/8/2006	2009		Allen, George
GILLESPIE, EDWARD 	6/8/2006	2075		Allen, George
GILLESPIE, EDWARD 	7/23/2005	2075		Allen, George

:kick:

I can't tell all of you how impressed I am with your posts over these past few weeks. My litigation with Novation has taken on a whole new meaning. Thanks for the support! S~

"HCA's fraud investigation involved 30 U.S. attorneys' offices, 22 FBI field offices, inspectors general from the Health and Human Service Department and the Office of Personnel Management, Defense Department investigators and state fraud units."

Spinning off a new thread:

30 U.S. attorneys investigate BILKING BILLIONS, Medicare, Medicaid, Military’s Healthcare
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x877011

Topics:
How is it that $$ BILLIONS $$ of fraud does not put CEOs in jail?
How is it that $$ BILLIONS $$ of fraud cases seem to evaporate or settle for so little?
How were those $$ BILLIONS $$ in lobbying by single industries spent? Where do those bucks STOP?

Focus: The BIG PICTURE.

These compilation threads get very keyword loaded and really build a high rank fast!!!!

U.S. attorney vows crackdown on government contract fraud
Washington Technology home > 06/06/05 issue
06/06/05; Vol. 20 No. 11
By ROSEANNE GERIN
http://www.washingtontechnology.com/print/20_11/26347-1.html

The head of a new anti-fraud task force is promising to crack down hard on illegal contracting practices and procurement fraud in government contracting.

"Our goal is to detect and investigate and prosecute criminal fraud by improving our enforcement efforts, and by doing this we hope to prevent procurement fraud in the first place," said U.S. Attorney Paul McNulty of the Eastern District of Virginia.

Speaking at a recent Fairfax, Va., Chamber of Commerce event in McLean, Va., McNulty said he wants the anti-fraud working group to educate contractors and contracting officers about how to spot fraud. One way to do this is by placing criminal investigators in offices to work alongside contractors to help them detect illegal activities.

The working group also is keeping its eye on ethics violations and conflicts of interests by looking at where other previous procurement officials went to work after they left the government, he said.

McNulty established the Procurement Fraud Working Group ........

New DOJ Guidelines Tone Down Corporate Fraud Prosecutions
http://www.itbusinessedge.com/item/?ci=22930

Question: What is the McNulty Memo, and what does it do?

Cellini: On Dec. 12, 2006, Paul McNulty, the incumbent Deputy Attorney General, issued a revised memorandum to prosecutors outlining the factors they should consider when deciding to charge corporate entities with wrongdoing. This memorandum replaces the Thompson Memo and will inevitably come to be known as the McNulty Memo.

The McNulty Memo chooses sides in the war between the factor that rewards companies for establishing effective internal compliance programs and the factor that punishes companies for failing to voluntarily disclose adverse information turned up by those very same programs. Specifically, the McNulty Memo dramatically limits the circumstances under which it will require corporations to waive the attorney/client privilege. In other words, the Justice Department has made a choice and has come down on the side of encouraging companies to establish compliance programs (even at the expense of giving up its power to force companies to disclose unfavorable information uncovered by those programs). ....

Of course, corporate entities are abstract entities that cannot be jailed. However, if convicted, they can be fined heavily and barred from doing business with the government. .... As a practical matter, indictment is often tantamount to a death sentence for a corporate entity.......

===========================
Statement of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales on the
Resignation of Deputy Attorney General Paul J. Mcnulty
http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2007/May/07_ag_357.html

"He has also been the principal driver of the Department’s policies and efforts to prevent corporate fraud and stop those who seek to defraud the taxpayers through fraudulent procurement practices...."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2848874

Justice Weighed Firing 1 in 4 - 26 Prosecutors Were Listed As Candidates
By Dan Eggen and Amy Goldstein
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, May 17, 2007; Page A01

The Justice Department considered dismissing many more U.S. attorneys than officials have previously acknowledged, with at least 26 prosecutors suggested for termination between February 2005 and December 2006, according to sources familiar with documents withheld from the public.

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales testified last week that the effort was limited to eight U.S. attorneys fired since last June, and other administration officials have said that only a few others were suggested for removal.

.... D. Kyle Sampson, then Gonzales's chief of staff, considered more than two dozen U.S. attorneys for termination, according to lists compiled by him and his colleagues, the sources said.

They amounted to more than a quarter of the nation's 93 U.S. attorneys. Thirteen of those known to have been targeted are still in their posts.

kpete Wed May-16-07 06:08 PM - http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x903624

50 US Attorney Generals Wanted Gonzales To Investigate Oil Industry-HE REFUSED

Judiciary Hearing on Oil Prices and Market Failure:
A Federal Investigation Denied
May 16th, 2007 by Jesse Lee
http://www.speaker.gov/blog/?p=386

The Judiciary Committee Task Force on Antitrust has concluded its hearing, “Prices at the Pump: Market Failure and the Oil Industry.” Richard Blumenthal, Attorney General for the State of Connecticut, describes a meeting he had with US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales requesting a federal investigation into the oil industry: ................

GOP Lawmaker Told of Plan to Fire U.S. Attorney
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 28, 2007; Page A02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/27/AR2007042702112.html

The White House told a Republican member of Congress last summer about its plans to fire a U.S. attorney in Arkansas and replace him with a former aide to presidential adviser Karl Rove, but it did not tell Democratic lawmakers, according to a new Justice Department e-mail released yesterday.

The White House called Rep. John Boozman (R-Ark.) "and pretty much told him what they are doing with this appointment and how they are going about it," according to a July 6 e-mail from Bud Cummins, then the U.S. attorney in Little Rock. ...........

The message indicates that Bush administration officials told Boozman about their plans to fire Cummins at the same time that Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) and other Democrats say they were being stonewalled.

Pryor has accused Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and other Justice officials of lying to him about the firing of Cummins, ........

Gonzales falls under renewed assault
Another GOP senator calls for the attorney's resignation, as two Democrats prepare a no-confidence resolution for the chamber's vote.
By Tom Hamburger and Joe Mozingo, Times Staff Writers
May 18, 2007
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/la-na-gonzales18may18,1,559164.story?coll=la-news-politics-national&track=crosspromo


WASHINGTON — After appearing to have weathered the worst of the Justice Department scandal, Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales found himself under fresh assault Thursday on the heels of this week's revelations about his conduct in the Bush administration.....

.......Comey told a Senate panel Tuesday that Gonzales, when he was White House counsel, pushed a secret national security order over the objections of the Justice Department, which considered the program illegal.....

... on Thursday, John McKay, who was fired as U.S. attorney in Washington state, said that the events surrounding the firings of two of his colleagues could be "potential obstruction-of-justice cases."

He said he suspected that U.S. Atty. David C. Iglesias was removed from his post, in New Mexico, because Iglesias wouldn't go along with voter fraud prosecutions to help the GOP in 2006 elections in that state; and that U.S. Atty. Carol C. Lam was removed in San Diego to derail the expanding probe of then-Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Rancho Santa Fe)..........

McKay called it "incomprehensible" that Gonzales didn't know how so many of his presidential appointees were fired. "He's either not telling the truth and covering something up, or he's incompetent."

McKay said he didn't think Gonzales was incompetent. ....................