Has the name of Jackson Stephens come up in all of this DoJ scandal talk concerning high level coverup of medicare fraud? He runs an empire of nursing homes, and you may remember his name from the Clinton administration. His name comes up here and there at Daniel Hopsicker's madcowprod.com
-Bob --- In cia-drugs@yahoogroups.com, "Vigilius Haufniensis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x849449 BOTH Chief US Attorney and Senior US Prosecuting Attorney found DEAD in their homes. Edited on Tue May-08-07 08:35 PM by L. Coyote This thread disappeared for reasons unknown, so here we go again, assuming the topic is not off-limits on DU. PLEASE, stay within the confines of reasoned comment. ========================================================= When did the US Attorney Firings controversy really begin? Two attorneys involved in prosecuting the case implicated in a USA firing were found dead in their homes in July and Sept. 2004. I discovered this FROM researching this thread: Missouri attorney a focus in USA firings = Bradley Schlozman http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph... THIS is the article that garnered my interest: Former MO US Attorney Todd Graves the Ninth Attorney Targeted by Alberto Gonzales http://www.pressrelease365.com/pr/government/federal/gr... Kansas City, MO 04/09/07 - Medical Supply Chain founder Samuel Lipari unearthed a US Department of Justice memo revealing the Office of the Attorney General had targeted not eight but ten US Attorneys including the former attorney for the Western District of Missouri, Todd P. Graves. The documents were obtained during Medical Supply Chain's discovery ..... e-mail dated January 9th, 2006 from Kyle Sampson, ..... The Western District of Missouri US Attorney office under Todd P. Graves had been active in prosecuting Medicare fraud..... ...... Samuel Lipari became concerned that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was using the firing of appointed US Attorneys and senior assistant US Attorneys to obstruct justice in investigations involving public corruption on October 18, 2004 when white collar crime prosecuting Assistant US Attorneys Leonard Senerote, Michael Uhl and Michael Snipes were fired from the Ft. Worth Texas office of the US Attorney that had issued subpoenas in an ongoing investigation of Novation LLC and other hospital suppliers for anticompetitive practices. Samuel Lipari was especially concerned over the firings in the Ft. Worth office where the chief US Attorney responsible for Medicare fraud, Thelma Louise Quince Colbert had been found dead in her swimming pool on July 20th, 2004 and the Ft. Worth office Senior US Prosecuting Attorney that had signed the subpoenas, Shannon Ross (formerly of Kansas) was found dead in her home on September 13th, 2004. ...... ============================== I was not the first to notice this. Regarding a DU thread including a timeline post, George Oilwellian wrote: "Yes, I posted a thread on this about 10 days ago http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph... ...this particular link is chocked full of Mr. Lipari's actions to date: http://www.medicalsupplychain.com/news.htm ============================== philly_bob wrote: .. Three of the top prosecutors in the Texas DOJ office "retired" and "resigned" shortly after the deaths of Ross and Colbert. The resigned ones apparently got very well-paid jobs. Here's a link: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/4/17/18120/2944 DailyKos ties it all up with a medical company called Novation, but I don't know. In other accounts of other offices, it's about political corruption prosecutions, in still others, it's about election fraud. ============================== I found this article in the NY Times: WIDE U.S. INQUIRY INTO PURCHASING FOR HEALTH CARE By MARY WILLIAMS WALSH Published: August 21, 2004 http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&r... The Justice Department has opened a broad criminal investigation of the medical-supply industry, apparently to determine whether hospitals and other medical care providers are fraudulently overcharging Medicare and other federal and state health programs for a wide array of goods -- from rubber gloves to drugs to X-ray machines. More than a dozen medical-supply companies recently received federal subpoenas in what appears to be a wide-ranging investigation into the way suppliers market products to clinics, hospitals and nursing homes that serve Medicare and Medicaid patients, and whether those institutions properly account for the purchases. ................. =============================== Here is a letter the litigant Lipari sent to Seator McCaskill http://tomflocco.com/Docs/McCaskillLetter.htm March 26, 2007 ........ Dear Senator McCaskill, I am writing to your constituent services office about my problem being denied entry into the market for hospital supplies by Novation, LLC a hospital group purchasing organization. I developed an electronic marketplace ........ Since the Bush administration was not enforcing 42 U.S.C. § 1320a-7b(b) or the Sherman Antitrust Act, I attempted to obtain a civil injunction with the aid of a private attorney, Bret D. Landrith. When our complaint clearly stated antitrust claims against the cartel coconspirators, the opposing counsel caused my attorney to be repeatedly prosecuted on pretextual ethics violations ......... ================================ I also found this article: Hijacking at the Hospital Purchasing groups created to hold down health costs seem to be holding up patients instead. By PABLO LASTRA - Feature: Wednesday, November 23, 2005 http://www.fwweekly.com/content.asp?article=3419 ................. Novation, a North Texas company that, while little known to the average person, has become the largest broker of hospital and medical supplies in the country, wielding enormous influence over the lives of patients, the safety of hospital workers, and the zooming costs of healthcare in this country. But it's also a giant in trouble. Several small medical supply manufacturers that say they have been squeezed out of the market by Novation are lining up to sue, and the company has already paid out millions of dollars in settlements. Congress is in its third year of investigating Novation's activities. At least one state attorney general is investigating the company. And now the company is a target of a Dallas-based investigation by the U.S. Attorney's office into massive allegations of Medicare fraud a probe that has been hampered by the deaths, within the last 18 months, of two of the prosecutors involved in it. The irony is that Novation and other entities like it called group purchasing organizations were invented to help hospitals save money. But instead of saving patients money, many people charge, Novation, in effect, is working on behalf of manufacturers and suppliers, helping them and Novation itself to make as much money as possible, to the detriment of taxpayers and the healthcare-buying public. Moreover, a recent deal involving a publicly traded partner of Novation has raised more concerns about its position in the healthcare industry, which verges ever closer to a monopoly. All while prices for medical supplies paid for by insurers, patients, and taxpayers continue to escalate at a rate far outpacing inflation. ............ In 1986, Congress passed legislation regulating GPOs, including the so-called "safe harbor" agreement that exempts GPOs from federal laws against kickbacks. The rationale was that allowing GPOs to be financed by "administrative fees" paid by suppliers would allow hospitals to spend their money on patient care. Hospitals that belong to GPOs are obligated to buy supplies from them. ........... =================================== Here is another article on the issue: Attorney General Alberto Gonzales Sandbagged Novation LLC Prosecution Written by Samuel Lipari Kansas City, MO -- Apr 16, 2007 -- /prbuzz/ -- http://www.prbuzz.com/attorney-general-alberto-gonzales ... Novation LLC a hospital supplier in Irving, Texas admitted in a Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals filing dated April 9th, 2007 that it was identified as a co-conspirator in a 2002 scheme to use US Bancorp's trust division to prevent Medical Supply Chain from entering the market for hospital supplies by withholding escrow accounts and misusing the USA PATRIOT act as a pretext. On July 30, 2006 the British newspaper the Daily Mail reported that Novation was under a bribes probe by the US Department of Justice stating Novation; " is being investigated by American prosecutors following accusations that it has accepted huge 'bribes' from medical manufacturers." On July 31, 2006 the London Times reported the existence of the US Department of Justice investigation of Novation's conduct as a hospital group purchasing organization or "GPO" and quoted Professor Prakash Sethi, president of the International Center for Corporate Accountability at Baruch College in New York who stated "My most conservative estimates suggest that GPOs extract extra profits of $5 billion (£2.6 billion) to $6 billion which legitimately belong to their principal clients, the hospitals." After Alberto Gonzales became Attorney General on February 3, 2005, the investigation of Novation was suppressed even though insider Novation executives came forward to the US Department of Justice with evidence of laundering hospital funds through the publicly traded electronic hospital supply marketplace Neoforma, Inc. that was then controlled by Novation, Volunteer Hospital Association (VHA), and University Health System Consortium (UHC) and is now owned by the electronic hospital supply marketplace GHX, LLC. In an April 18, 2005 affidavit, Medical Supply Chain founder Samuel Lipari complained about FBI misuse of USA PATRIOT Act surveillance powers. ..... ................ =============================== Before the Greatest Thread vanished with 76 recommendations, I wrote: May-08-07 10:23 AM - #141. EXCELLENT comments. Strenght of a discussion group at work here. I found this info/thread yesterday while researching the MO USA news, where some of this may be relevant to the politization at issue. ....... This "billions in fraud" issue within USA-Gate was news to me, and, no doubt, also is news for many readers. I appreciate the critical comments much more than the wild speculations. Investigation requires critical reasoning slightly peppered with speculations founded on evidence. It is no great revelation that lots of people "dislike" our current politicos. Their rants do not move research/investigation forward. Specific facts do. ..... ====================================== PLEASE, let's try to discuss the facts, including circumstantial evidence, without rants bordering on sedition! THANKS. Laughin' Coyote.
