Inmate Health Consultant Pleads Guilty to Lying to FBI

BIRMINGHAM –A Vestavia Hills man pleaded guilty today in federal court to making a false statement to the FBI in relation to payments he received from a contractor providing inmate health care at the Jefferson County Jail, announced Acting U.S. Attorney Robert O. Posey and FBI Special Agent in Charge Roger C. Stanton.

MICHAEL P. GODDARD, 68, a consultant on inmate health at the county jail, entered his plea before U.S. District Court Judge R. David Proctor to falsely telling FBI agents that payments he received from a Jefferson County contractor were unrelated to a specific contract with the county jail. The U.S. Attorney’s Office charged Goddard in February. His sentencing date has not been set.

Birmingham FBI agents questioned Goddard in August 2016 while they were investigating recurring monthly payments to him from Davis & Associates, a Birmingham consulting firm, and “another entity that were funded by Health Assurance, LLC,” according to Goddard’s plea agreement in the case. Health Assurance had contracts with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office from 2007 through 2011 to provide health care to Jefferson County jail inmates.

The sheriff’s office contracted with Health Assurance in about February 2007, and the contract could be renewed yearly. Soon after Health Assurance began receiving payments from Jefferson County, Goddard began receiving monthly payments from Davis & Associates that were funded by Health Assurance, according to the plea agreement.

In July 2011, the payments to Goddard funded by Health Assurance began coming from a different entity, which the court documents do not name. The payments to Goddard continued to about October 2011, when Health Assurance’s contract with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office ended, the plea agreement states.

FBI agents interviewed Goddard on Aug. 31 and served him with a grand jury subpoena for records. The agents asked Goddard about the monthly payments he received that were funded by Health Assurance. Goddard told the agents that the monthly payments he received were unrelated to Health Assurance’s contracts with Jefferson County.

Goddard knew that statement was false “in that he knew the payments he received were directly related to the contracts, and he knew that this false statement was material to the FBI’s investigation,” the plea agreement states.

The maximum penalty for making a false statement to the FBI is five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

The FBI is investigating the case, which Assistant U.S. Attorney George Martin is prosecuting.