Former Ficano Assistant To Serve 7.5 Years For Wire Fraud

A former assistant to Wayne County Executive, Robert Ficano, will serve 7.5 years in federal prison due to the wire fraud in a kickback scheme in which an insurance program was involved.

On Tuesday, 42-year-old Michael Grundy, a former assistant executive and executive director of HealthChoice of Michigan, a county health insurance program for the needy, received that sentence before U.S. District Judge Denise Page Hood in Detroit.

Ficano discharged Grundy from the job in late 2011, just a few months before the charges were brought.

In June 2013, Grundy pleaded guilty to “honest services wire fraud”, a felony for which a person has to face a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and he accepted that he had caused the accountant of HealthChoice to wire transfer $400,000 to a company called Medtrix LLC.

Grundy showed that the amount that was paid was part of a contract to develop and implement an electronic medical records system for HealthChoice medical providers, but the company never created such a system for the county.

In 2012, Medtrix owner Keith Griffin of Carmel, Ind., pleaded guilty to the wire fraud scheme and testified during Grundy’s nine-day sentencing hearing that was done in May and June.

News Source: www.CrainsDetroit.com