Alleged $800,000 theft discovered

A state Department of Health and Hospitals employee allegedly misappropriated more than $800,000 in public funds, state officials reported Friday.

DHH turned over the evidence gathered during an internal investigation to the Louisiana Legislative Auditor’s Office and the East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney for an external investigation and prosecution, according to a news release.

DHH will attempt to recover the funds, the release stated.

The employee has been placed on leave and DHH is taking steps to terminate the employee through the state Department of Civil Service, according to the release.

The employee allegedly misappropriated the public funds for “personal activities,” which were not further described by DHH. The identity of the employee, where he or she worked, over what period of time the alleged activity occurred and other details were not made available by DHH.

“DHH cannot release any more information about the incident because it is pending an investigation,” department spokeswoman Kristen Sunde said. “We’ve turned our information over to the proper authorities for them to conduct an external investigation.”

According to DHH, an internal investigation detected “unusual accounting practices” involving an employee.

“DHH’s Bureau of Health Care Integrity conducted a probe which revealed the employee allegedly misappropriated more than $800,000 in public funds by depositing checks made payable to DHH into a non-DHH account, then withdrawing funds from that account for personal use,” according to the statement.

The news release said DHH enacted measures to prevent similar incidents, enforcing more stringent internal accounting and reporting procedures.

Legislative Auditor Daryl Purpera said Friday he already has assigned a team from the office’s investigation division to work on the project. “We are looking at how it happened, did it happen, why internal controls didn’t catch it,” Purpera said.

DHH Secretary Bruce Greenstein, the statement, expressed “outrage” that a member of the agency’s staff would “allegedly willfully misuse public funds that were intended for health care services.”

Comments

1) Comment by chainsaw - 03/03/2013

So much for checks and balances.

2) Comment by Frustrated - 02/03/2013

Actually Daryl Purpera the legislative auditor is the one that should be fired. His office is responsible for auditing state agencies and they missed a big one.

3) Comment by Reality Check - 02/03/2013

$800,000 is a mere drop in the bucket compared to what the medical profession and the casino's each steal in Baton Rouge alone each and every month - and the medical profession steals way more than the casino's. Look at Time magazine this past week.

4) Comment by wiliedog - 02/03/2013

So, almost a million is missing and it appears no one at DHH 'missed' it? Or didn't miss it for an extended period of time? That agency has been awash in money almost as much as the education system and both do a poor job...just look at the money spent on 'sick folk' and 'ignorant folk' in Louisiana and what you get for the money... This, like the Bernie Madoff, Fannie Mae, and hundreds of other instances where government agencies and government regulators failed to do their job...what happens to them? Why are they never, never held accountable for failing to do their job?

5) Comment by swinham - 02/03/2013

Hello Baton Rouge: "The employee has been placed on leave and DHH is taking steps to terminate the employee through the state Department of Civil Service, according to the release." Doesn't that say they know who it is?

6) Comment by Hello Baton Rouge - 02/03/2013

swinham, this news release is stating that they just uncovered the theft, which, in itself, is quite hard to believe. It shouldn't take very long to narrow it down to the exact person responsible as there isn't any cash that goes through there. Whats hard to swallow is that the person responsible has probably blown all of the money at the casinos already and has nothing of value so the only option is jail time in this case.

7) Comment by tball - 02/03/2013

Some good bookkeeping..

8) Comment by swinham - 02/03/2013

This may sound like a stupid question, and I know our state officials like to keep everything as secret as possible, but why isn't this person in jail? Has s/he even been arrested? If so, isn't this arrest public information? Are they trying not to tip off accompices? $800K is real money to anybody anywhere. Another in a string of ridiculous incidents.

9) Comment by tradewinns - 02/03/2013

as the govt. usually states. as least they caught her/him before they got into the "real money figures".

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