Hospital chain: Payroll manager embezzled $5.4M

Florida-based Promise Healthcare and 11 of its hospitals sued its payroll manager for an alleged fraud scheme that diverted millions of dollars to himself and his companies, Courthouse News reported.

Promise Healthcare put Sonny Ramdeo in charge of payroll for its 3,500 employees eight years ago.

The suit accuses Ramdeo and his payroll tax-processing company, PayServ Tax, and jet charter company, Ez-Jet GT, of embezzling $5.4 million from the hospital chain through false representations, fabricated documents and emails, and a fake website, the article noted.

"Ramdeo effected this fraud through a sophisticated scheme of fraud that deceived not only Promise's senior management but also its auditors," the complaint states.

According to Promise Healthcare's suit, Ramdeo also bought the domain name, Pay-tax.com, and linked that Web address directly to the website of Ceridian, a nationally known payroll-processing company, to throw off investigations, Courthouse News noted.

With employee embezzlement a serious problem among healthcare providers, hospitals can recognize red flags and take several critical steps to prevent it, such as using a legal and transparent screening process to check potential hires' credit upfront, FiercePracticeManagement previously reported.

To learn more:
- read the Courthouse News article