A former hospital administrator accused of defrauding the U.S. Virgin Islands' government has allegedly drained US$1.2 million from his own frozen bank account, prosecutors said Tuesday.
Rodney Miller, a former CEO at one of the largest public hospitals in the U.S. Caribbean islands, is one of three ex-administrators accused of funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars from the hospital's taxpayer-funded budget into their personal accounts.
U.S. Virgin Islands Superior Court Judge James Carroll in August froze an account Miller had at the Pentagon Federal Credit Union, a financial coop for veterans and members of the military, while investigators pursue the case against him.
Still, a large chunk of the cash stored there somehow disappeared, surfacing recently in the private accounts of Miller's wife and mother, said Sara Lezama, a spokeswoman for the island territory's Justice Department.
Lezama also alleged that Miller took advantage of an unspecified "oversight" problem at the credit union to wire his attorneys US$385,000.
Two other former officials at the Schneider Regional Medical Center — CEO Amos Carty Jr. and CFO Peter Najawicz — are also under investigation for allegedly siphoning cash from the St. Thomas hospital.
A U.S. government audit alleged that the three colluded with the hospital's board to hide bloated compensation packages and lied to legislators about the public institution's cash flow between 2002 and 2007. During that time, the hospital operated with average annual loss of US$25.4 million, the audit noted.
Miller, who left the CEO post last November, could not be reached for comment.
Judge Carroll ordered Miller and his lawyers, William Glore and Charles Grant, to appear at a Sept. 23 hearing to respond to allegations about the drained bank account.
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