Former CEO of Hacienda Healthcare pleads guilty to fraud
Jun 22, 2021, 6:20 AM
(Maricopa County Sheriff's Office Photo)
(Maricopa County Sheriff's Office Photo)
PHOENIX — The former CEO of a Phoenix health care facility has pleaded guilty to two counts of felony fraud, according to state prosecutors.
William J. Timmons, who ran Hacienda Healthcare, is scheduled to be sentenced July 22.
The Arizona Attorney General’s Office said Monday in a press release that Timmons could be facing between three and 12 ½ years in prison on each count.
Timmons was CEO of Hacienda Healthcare from July 1989 to January 2019.
A state grand jury indicted Timmons and his chief financial officer, Joseph O’Malley, in August 2020.
The two were accused of being involved in what prosecutors said was an elaborate white-collar fraud scheme that bilked Arizona taxpayers out of millions of dollars.
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According to the indictment, Timmons and O’Malley “misallocated” money from the state from 2013 until June 30, 2018, by manipulating costs to avoid repayments of state funds in favor of inflated salaries and bonuses.
As part of a plea agreement, prosecutors said Timmons has agreed to pay $500,000 to the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System and $274,500 to the state attorney general’s anti-racketeering revolving fund.
O’Malley, who resigned in March 2019, is scheduled to stand trial in his case in March 2022.
The facility made headlines in January 2019, a few weeks after a patient who had been raped by a nurse gave birth.
