Former Cleveland Clinic Executive Pleads Guilty To $2.7M Fraud
A former Cleveland Clinic executive pleaded guilty this week to helping defraud the hospital out of $2.7 million, the Cleveland Jewish News reported. Gary Fingerhut was dismissed from his position as director of innovations in 2015 after the FBI alerted the hospital to his role in a massive fraud scheme.
Authorities say that Fingerhut paid out large sums of money to a shell company for services and products that didn’t exist. Fingerhut, 57, received nearly $500,000 for his role in the scheme. Prosecutors are seeking to force Fingerhut to pay back the entire $2.7 million dollars defrauded from the Clinic.
Fingerhut is expected to receive a sentence of between 41 and 51 months in prison.
“Certainly, Mr. Fingerhut is extremely sorry for what he did,” said J. Timothy Bender, Fingerhut’s attorney. “He has admitted his guilt and is hopeful that the consequences, both for himself or the Cleveland Clinic, are not too severe.”
Contact Ari Feldman at [email protected] or on Twitter @aefeldman.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we need 500 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Our Goal: 500 gifts during our Passover Pledge Drive!