Phillips and Cohen partner Peter Chatfield weighed in on white-collar crime in a story by The Kansas City Star examining the alleged involvement of the former CFO of an Adventist Health Systems hospital in a kickback scheme. The former CFO had recently been appointed interim CEO at a Kansas City-area hospital. Chatfield represented several whistleblowers who reported the scheme at Adventist Health Systems’ hospital network.
“At the end of the day, once the noise and the outrage that some of the Adventist community had about not wanting to be associated with people who act this way, once that … fades away, they have these experienced execs who … in fact made more money for the company with what they did than they ended up paying to the government.”
“Being fast and loose and hyper-aggressive in white-collar crime or fraud gets treated much differently than what happens with other kinds of crime,” Chatfield said. “A lot of times people end up being rewarded.”