Falsification of payroll timesheets constitutes grand larceny
Compliance Perspective – Grand Larceny
Policies/Procedures: The Compliance and Ethics Officer with the Administrator will review policies and procedures involving the accuracy of employee and agency staff timesheets.
Training: The Compliance and Ethics Officer and Administrator will ensure that business office staff are trained to review timesheets from a“common sense” perspective and to notice obvious over-reported time worked.
Audit: The Compliance and Ethics Officer will periodically conduct an audit to compare employees’ and agency personnel’s timesheets with logs listing employees and agency staff working on corresponding days.
Two licensed nurses, Keisha Demas and Alla Noginsky, and the former hospital director, Marco Vanni, have been convicted of stealing more than $750,000 from a non-profit community-based hospital. The convictions involved grand larceny ($725,000), criminal tax fraud($40,000), forgery, and Medicaid fraud ($30,000).
Noginsky and Vanni both cooperated in the investigation and both pleaded guilty to charges. Noginsky paid $125,000 in restitution and Vanni repaid $200,000.
According to the investigation Demas and Noginsky were employed through an outside nursing agency. From 2012 through 2016 the pair conspired with the hospital’s director to falsify their timesheets to make it appear as if they were working when they were not, and they paid regular cash to Vanni as a bribe for allowing their scheme. Demas also received Medicaid benefits she was not eligible for and underpaid New York State taxes.
Demas is expected to be sentenced to five months in jail and five years of probation, and Noginsky is expected to receive a 2-year conditional discharge sentence. Vanni is expected to be sentenced to five years of probation. They will be placed on the OIG’s list of excluded individuals.
