Suburban businessman swindled $2.6M out of hospitals seeking PPE: feds
Federal prosecutors say a suburban businessman swindled more than $2.6 million out of two hospitals looking for personal protective equipment in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, using some of the money to buy luxury automobiles.
Dennis W. Haggerty Jr., president of At Diagnostics Inc., has been charged with wire fraud in a 39-page criminal complaint made public Tuesday in federal court in Chicago. Prosecutors say he cheated two large university hospitals in Chicago and Iowa City. Court records identify them as Northwestern Memorial Healthcare and University of Iowa Medical Center.
The two hospitals ordered a combined 1 million 3M N95 face masks last spring from At Diagnostics Inc., paying more than $3 million as a deposit. But prosecutors say the hospitals paid the money into a bank account Haggerty, 44, falsely claimed was an At Diagnostics account.
Haggerty allegedly used some of the money to buy a 2013 Maserati GranTurismo, a 2015 Land Rover Range Rover, and a 2017 Maserati Ghibli, federal prosecutors said. On April 1, he also allegedly paid $20,000 by check to an individual his business partners identified as his girlfriend, paid another $5,809 to Home Depot and then withdrew $6,000 through a check written to cash. In the month that followed, he allegedly cashed another 17 checks for $141,750 in cash.
When At Diagnostics failed to deliver the masks to the hospitals, they canceled their orders and demanded their money refunded. Haggerty, of Burr Ridge, allegedly claimed to have no record of one hospital’s $2.495 million wire transfer and even altered a bank statement to try to fool his business partners.
One of those partners texted him to “call us ASAP” in June about the money from one hospital, prosecutors said. When Haggerty replied he would be free in five minutes, the other partner texted, “We don’t have 5 mins,” and warned the hospital planned to report At Diagnostics to law enforcement.
Haggerty allegedly told one of his business partners by phone the next day that he had “f----- up” and lied about the money. The feds say he has failed to return more than $2.6 million.