Former Danbury Hospital CFO indicted on fraud charges [The News-Times, Danbury, Conn.]

Sept. 02--DANBURY -- A federal grand jury in Hartford on Wednesday indicted William Roe, 56, the former treasurer and chief financial officer of Danbury Hospital. He was charged with one count of wire fraud and two counts of interstate transportation of stolen money.

Thomas Carson, spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office, said Wednesday that while Roe was arrested in mid-August for his criminal activities at Danbury Hospital and at his previous place of employment, St. Rita's Medical Center in Lima, Ohio, a grand jury needed to indict him to bring the case to court.

Roe is expected to be arraigned Tuesday at U.S. District Court in Bridgeport before Judge Holly Fitzsimmons.

Attorney Richard T. Meehan Jr. of Bridgeport -- who defended former Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim in his 2003 corruption trial -- will represent Roe.

Meehan said Wednesday he had yet to discuss the case with Roe and could not comment.

Danbury Hospital spokesman Andrea Rynn said in a news release Wednesday, "As stated previously, this matter is now being handled in the federal court system. We do not want to complicate those proceedings in any way, and for that reason we will not comment further on the matter."

Rynn also declined to say whether the hospital fired Roe or allowed him to resign.

"While we understand there may be questions about Mr. Roe's employment with us," Rynn said, "discussing the circumstances of his departure could not only complicate due process, it could also violate the rights afforded him by state statute that specifically protects such information."

The indictment drawn up by U.S. Attorney David Fein alleges Roe, a Wilton resident, "knowingly and intentionally devised and intended to devise a scheme and artifice to defraud and to obtain money and property" from Danbury Hospital and from Catholic Healthcare Partners, an Ohio-based association of hospitals.

Before coming to Danbury Hospital in March 2009, Roe was chief financial officer at St. Rita's Medical Center in Lima, Ohio.

The indictment states Roe formed a corporation, Cycle Software Solutions, and submitted false invoices to the two hospitals, taking the payments without providing services.

According to the indictment, Danbury Hospital has a policy forbidding its employees from having business transactions with the hospital.

Roe's activities began in 2008, when he got $33,500 from Catholic Healthcare Partners through two false invoices, according to the indictment.

On July 15, 2009, according to the indictment, Roe submitted a $47,500 invoice to Danbury Hospital for a commercial package of contract management software. He signed a check directing the money to his company July 25, 2009. The indictment states Danbury Hospital never received any software for the payment.

The indictment states Roe submitted a second invoice to the hospital on Jan. 10, 2010, and wrote a check Jan. 13, again for $47,500.

He had each of the checks sent to him and drove to Pennsylvania to cash it, the indictment states.

However, a third check from Danbury Hospital -- for $25,000 on July 26 -- may have proven to be Roe's downfall. According to FBI documents, hospital staff noticed several irregularities on the invoice.

The hospital stopped payment on the check and an internal investigation unearthed Roe's other fraudulent activities, the FBI document states.

Carson said the indictment does not mention a second act of fraud that is alleged in the FBI documents -- that Roe altered the appraisals on his home in Lima, Ohio, so Danbury Hospital compensated him $46,166 that he was not entitled to claim.

Carson said a further set of charges -- that Roe engaged in witness tampering, obstruction of justice, and second-degree harassment by repeatedly calling and e-mailing Dr. John Murphy, Danbury Hospital president and chief executive officer, on Aug. 17 and 18, after Roe's arrest -- will be part of the proceedings when Roe appears in court Sept. 7.

Contact Robert Miller

at bmiller@newstimes.com

or at 203-731-3345.

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