Court Rules Defunct Mental Health Provider Must Pay Employee Health, Annuity Plans

Dayton Daily News (OH)

Nov. 21--The former Day-Mont Behavioral Health Care Inc. and its fiduciaries are ordered to pay more than $140,000 to employee benefit health and annuity plans.

The mental health service provider closed in 2018. Its facility was at 1520 Germantown St. in Dayton, with a satellite office at 8145 N. Main St. in Clayton.

The judgment announced Wednesday follows an investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor's Employee Benefits Security Administration's Cincinnati office, which found that the mental health service provider and fiduciaries Gayle Johnson and Akil Sharif violated the Employee Retirement Income Security Act by not making contributions to its annuity and health plans, according to a release.

"The consent order and judgment ensures that employees who participated in Day-Mont Behavioral Health Care Inc.'s employee benefit plans will have access to their hard-earned retirement benefits and have their medical claims paid as they expected when they contributed their earnings to these plans," said EBSA Regional Director L. Joe Rivers. "Fiduciaries must work solely in the interest of plans and participants."

Johnson and Sharif are ordered to pay $64,582 to the Day-Mont West Tax-Deferred Annuity Plan participants from Jan. 13, 2012, through Aug. 5, 2016. They also are ordered to pay $77,084 to employees participating in the Day-Mont Behavioral Health Care Inc. Employee Benefit Plan, a healthcare plan, from Feb. 20, 2015, through July 21, 2016.

The fiduciaries also will pay a civil penalty of $28,333 and are permanently barred from acting as service providers or fiduciaries to any ERISA-covered plan.