South St. Paul boys basketball coach charged with conspiracy to commit health care fraud [Pioneer Press, St. Paul, Minn.]

Jan. 12—In basketball circles, Matthew McCollister has a reputation as a coach who's turned around struggling and stagnant high school boys basketball programs.

McCollister's head coaching starts and stops include Breck, St. Croix Preparatory Academy and Brooklyn Center. Since 2019, he's coached South St. Paul, which last season fell a game short of the state tournament. The Packers (11-0) this season are among the top-ranked teams in Class 3A.

In legal circles, however, McCollister's standing as a personal injury attorney has taken a hit.

Last month, McCollister, 40, of Mendota Heights, was charged with felony conspiracy to commit health care fraud. He is accused of playing a role in a scheme to rip off car insurance companies with bogus medical claims in Minnesota and elsewhere in 2016 and 2017.

Also last month, a state agency recommended that McCollister be disbarred for professional misconduct in 2019 and 2020. McCollister opened his own injury law practice in March 2015.

Federal prosecutors on Dec. 8 charged McCollister by felony information, a process by which a defendant agrees to waive a grand jury indictment and instead plead guilty. On Wednesday, he will make an initial court appearance before District Judge Wilhelmina Wright in St. Paul and enter his guilty plea, Ryan Pacyga, McCollister's attorney, said this week.

"He's kind of immediately just cooperating with the process and falling on the sword for himself," Pacyga said.

Sentencing guidelines call for 10 to 16 months in prison, Pacyga said. A sentencing hearing date will be scheduled after Wednesday's arraignment.

Dave Webb, superintendent of South St. Paul Schools, said this week that he could not comment on the federal charge because it falls under employee private personnel data. On Wednesday morning, McCollister resigned from his coaching job and full-time job as a high school paraprofessional, Webb said.

McCollister has coached the high school's basketball team since November 2019. Since August, he's been a full-time high school paraprofessional, working with student-support specialists who focus on student behavior "to help kids turn a corner to get back on track," Webb said.

If McCollister does plead guilty to the criminal charge, he would face immediate termination from the school district under its employee policy.

Other than petty misdemeanor moving violations dating back to 2017, McCollister does not have a criminal record in Minnesota.

McCollister did not respond to requests by the Pioneer Press for comment.

South St. Paul High School Principal Chuck Ochocki and Chad Sexauer, the school's athletics director and assistant principal, also did not return calls seeking comment.

WHAT HE IS ACCUSED OF

According to the federal charge, McCollister and unnamed others conspired to defraud auto insurers on policies provided pursuant to the state's no-fault insurance law.

Under that law, Minnesota insurers must provide at least $40,000 in personal injury protection on their auto policies. Clients hurt in a car crash can get their medical bills and other related expenses paid for, whether the crash was their fault or not.

The charging document does not spell out what McCollister is alleged to have done and it is unclear why it was handed down last month. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office said this week that she could not provide additional details about the case beyond the document, but added that more information will be discussed at Wednesday's arraignment and in the plea agreement.

According to Pacyga, prosecutors allege McCollister hired "runners" to recruit clients who were supposedly injured in car crashes. The same runners would work with chiropractors who would fraudulently bill auto insurance companies for those clients' care, taking advantage of the no-fault insurance law.

In March 2016, according to Pacyga, McCollister asked a "runner," who was really an undercover agent, to find people who purportedly had been injured in car accidents and bring them to a chiropractor for treatment. "I mean, they had him up on a wire in a St. Paul restaurant talking about those sorts of things," Pacyga said.

It is a state, not federal, crime for an attorney to work with runners. What got McCollister prosecuted in U.S. District Court was drafting a letter to an insurance company or companies demanding payment for chiropractic care that he knew was unnecessary, Pacyga said.

He said McCollister "lost his way for a while, his judgment spun out of control."

"That was quite a while ago in the past, but when this came up, he wanted to address it immediately," Pacyga said. "And rather than put the government through its paces in a case, he knew what he had done was wrong and he wanted to resolve this case quickly."

SUSPENDED FROM PRACTICING LAW

McCollister was admitted to practice law in Minnesota in 2009 and has been suspended by the state Supreme Court three times for a variety of misconduct.

He remains on a two-year suspension, which was handed down by the state's highest court in October 2020 following an investigation by the Office of Lawyers Professional Responsibility, a state agency that found a dozen instances of misconduct. They include failing to convey settlement offers to clients; failing to obtain a client's consent to dismiss a petition for arbitration of no-fault benefits; and failing to identify in a written contingent fee agreement how costs and expenses would be calculated. He also was accused of practicing law while suspended.

McCollister's professional conduct was first called out by the state agency in 2013, when he "unconditionally" admitted to allegations that he was paid by a competing attorney outside his firm for referring potential clients. McCollister's law license was suspended for 30 days.

In 2019, McCollister again was suspended from practicing law for 30 days for misconduct, including that he had agreed to a settlement without a client's knowledge or consent and forged the client's name on the settlement agreement.

Last month, McCollister and the state Office of Lawyers Professional Responsibility entered into a stipulation where he admits he intentionally misappropriated from at least three clients more than $16,300 in client funds from his trust account between July 2020 and December 2020. McCollister provided notice to each client of his misappropriation but has not made any restitution, the state agency concluded.

Under the Dec. 6 stipulation, McCollister agrees to waive his procedural rights and accepts the recommended discipline of no longer being able to practice law in the state. A petition for the disciplinary action will be reviewed by the state Supreme Court, which can accept or reject the disbarment recommendation.

SUCCESS ON THE BASKETBALL COURT

McCollister, who grew up in New Prague, Minn., landed his first head coaching job at Breck in 2010, after spending a few years as an assistant at Minneapolis Henry and Holy Angels. He transformed Breck from a five-win team to a 19-win team that reached the section finals in 2013.

After coaching the next two years at St. Croix Preparatory Academy, he spent four seasons at Brooklyn Center, helping the Centaurs reach the Class 2A state tournament for the first time in 35 years in 2018. They finished in fourth place.

McCollister coached Brooklyn Center for one more season before taking the job at South St. Paul, a school that had won just 19 percent of its games over the previous 10-year stretch and produced a dreadful 7-153 record in the Metro East Conference.

In McCollister's first season, the Packers won 18 games, breaking a streak of 18 seasons in which they won fewer than 10, before losing in the section semifinals. The team went 19-2 last season, before losing to Richfield 93-90 in the section final.

"This has kind of been our M.O., to come in and breathe life into programs," McCollister told the Pioneer Press midway through his first season. "Now this is the one we want to sustain."

The undefeated Packers next play Friday at Hastings High School.

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