Former Hospital Administrator Pleads Guilty to Defrauding Hospital

PATRICIA CLEARY SYLING, 39, of Lutz, Florida, pled guilty today in federal district court to all eight counts of mail fraud with which she had been charged by a federal grand jury last year. The charges to which SYLING pled guilty alleged that she created fraudulent contracts between a company she owned and her then-employer, Queen’s Medical Center (QMC), and then invoiced QMC for payments under those contracts even though no substantive work was performed by her. SYLING was first hired by QMC in September 2001, and, as the Corporate Compliance Administrator and Director of Revenue Cycle, she occupied a position which involved insuring that QMC was properly in compliance with various operating regulations imposed on it by a variety of regulatory agencies that oversee the health care delivery system in the United States and Hawaii.

United States Attorney Ed Kubo said that SYLING, in entering her pleas of guilty, admitted that terms of the three contracts prepared by her between QMC and the business owned by her, Healthcare Financial & Compliance Management, were not requested, nor were the terms bargained-for by any authorized representative of QMC. According to information produced in court, between November 21, 2002, and July 26, 2004, SYLING invoiced QMC eight times for payments under the fraudulent contracts created by her, and received an aggregate total of $594,430.84 in payments from QMC as a result.

SLYING faces a sentence of imprisonment up to 20 years on each count when she is sentenced by United States District Judge Susan Oki Mollway on May 26, 2009.

The prosecution was the result of an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The prosecution was handled by Assistant United States Attorney William Shipley.