Former officer of Kentucky medical company sentenced in $1.3 million theft
A former executive at a Kentucky medical consulting company who embezzled $1.3 million has been sentenced to two years in prison.
Thomas Samuels repaid more than $330,000 of what he stole. U.S. District Judge Gregory F. Van Tatenhove included restitution for the remaining amount, $1,046,304, as part of Samuels’ sentence.
Samuels was chief financial officer at Sterling Medical Consultants, a Louisville company that provided consulting services to doctors and associations in Kentucky, according to a court document.
The Kentucky Primary Care Association (KPCA) bought Sterling in July 2016. The association based in Frankfort is a non-profit that helps medical providers in under-served parts of Kentucky.
Samuels admitted that in the three years after KPCA bought Sterling, he embezzled $1,386,000.
Samuels wrote checks to himself from Sterling’s account and to another company in which he had an interest, Commonwealth Nursing Services, according to a court document.
Before his sentencing, friends and family members described Samuels, 59, as a dedicated husband and father and a caring man who treated employees well and served as a lay minister at his Catholic church.
Dr. Gregory Ciliberti, a business partner of Samuels, said Samuels was instrumental in creating a business that helped needy patients, many of them elderly, get medications through pharmaceutical assistance programs, and helped manage a top-rated business that provided companionship and personal care at home for older people and people with mental challenges.
Samuels said in a letter that he started stealing from Sterling Medical in order to avoid layoffs at other businesses in which he was involved that were facing financial difficulties.
“When things did not improve quickly, I was faced with a difficult choice of how to continue being a provider to others, as I had always done, and that is when I started improperly taking funds from the company,” Samuels said.
Samuels said he intended to repay the money.
“I in no way felt that I was doing this for myself,” he told Van Tatenhove in the letter.
However, prosecutors said in a sentencing memorandum that it appeared Samuels took part in “massive embezzlement” in an attempt to maintain a luxurious lifestyle.
There was some evidence that Samuels stole money before the period covered in the charge, and he altered financial records to cover the thefts, prosecutors said.
“The nature and circumstances of the offense reveal a serious crime resulting from a brazen breach of trust,” prosecutors Kenneth R. Taylor and Andrea L. Mattingly Williams said in the memo.
Samuels faced a sentence of 30 to 37 months under advisory federal guidelines, but judges can impose sentences outside those guidelines.
Samuels must report to prison in September.
