The former top executive of a Washington network of healthcare clinics pleaded guilty to embezzling nearly $24.4 million to fuel unsuccessful trading in his personal brokerage account, the Department of Justice announced late last week.
Patrick Alan Bucknum, age 55, was the CEO, chief financial officer and chief operations officer of Community Clinic Network (CCN) from 2017 to 2024. He’d also previously managed CCN’s finances and operations during the seven years prior while serving as CEO of one of its member clinics.
In that role, Bucknum was able to transfer reserve funds held by CCN to pay potential losses incurred under risk-based contracts the network signed with managed care organizations for its nonprofit member clinics, according to the signed plea agreement shared by the DOJ.
Beginning around April 2017, he began embezzling those funds into his personal brokerage account to trade stocks, options and exchanged-traded funds (ETFs) with an intention to return the initial money and pocket the returns.
"However, Defendant had no prior experience trading stocks, options, or ETFs,” the plea agreement reads. “Social media influenced Defendant’s trading strategy, which was generally bearish and highly leveraged. Due to Defendant’s poor trades, his losses of CCN funds quickly mounted, which resulted in Defendant embezzling more funds from CCN in an attempt to recover the losses."
All told, Bucknum transferred nearly $30.4 million to his personal account between 2017 and 2023 to support his trades, according to the plea, and returned about $7.4 million. What’s more, he also used the network’s funds to purchase two motor vehicles, a boat and more than $1 million of precious metal coins. All of these have been forfeited to the federal government as part of the plea, the DOJ said.
The former executive met with an attorney in 2019 over his “insurmountable” trading losses, but decided not to come forward and made a $5 million final, and unsuccessful, attempt to reverse the losses. In October 2024, he voluntarily terminated his employment at CCN and admitted to embezzlement in his resignation.
Bucknum has pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud and is scheduled for a sentencing hearing in September, the DOJ said. He faces maximum penalties of up to 20 years in prison, up to three years of supervised release, a fine of up to $250,000 and restitution. The federal charges against him were made public in May.