Vegas hospital raided, CEO fired

Las Vegas police searched the executive offices of University Medical Center (UMC) on Tuesday, looking for evidence of theft, fraud and criminal misconduct at the money-losing public hospital, according to news accounts. CEO Lacy Thomas, the primary target of the investigation that stretches from Sin City to Chicago, was fired.

"I had concerns about his lack of transparency regarding the hospital's financial situation," Clark County Manager Virginia Valentine told the Las Vegas Review-Journal shortly after letting Thomas go. UMC lost $34.3 million last year and has recorded $50 million in red ink during the past two years. Two former hospital executives reportedly told police that Thomas steered contracts to several Illinois businesses run by friends of Thomas, who previously was director of Stroger Hospital in Chicago. One of those friends called the firing racially motivated because Thomas is "an African-American in a redneck state."

For an in-depth account:
- Read the Las Vegas Review-Journal article

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