Former CEO of EMSA OKs $80K settlement
Former EMSA CEO Stephen Williamson has agreed to pay $80,000 to settle a civil kickback case, the U.S. Justice Department revealed Monday.
Williamson, 67, retired last October after 39 years in charge of the ambulance service for Oklahoma City and Tulsa.
He denied wrongdoing. At issue in the case filed in federal court in Sherman, Texas, was whether millions of dollars paid back to EMSA by a former contractor were secret kickbacks or legal rebates.
“We were proud of it,” Williamson testified in January about the arrangement EMSA calls a profit cap. The federal government in the civil case accused EMSA of accepting more than $20 million in illegal kickbacks from the former contractor, Paramedics Plus.
The federal government specifically accused Williamson in the civil complaint of accepting expensive gifts from the contractor. The federal government also specifically accused Williamson of having the contractor make political donations to preferred candidates.
“I know what they’ve told the world,” he testified in January. “I have received not a penny.”
He did acknowledge in the deposition to accepting steaks from the contractor. “I looked at it as a Christmas gift. I didn’t see it was affecting me to be objective at all,” he said.
He also said Paramedics Plus wanted to make political donations and just asked him for recommendations. EMSA — whose full name is the Emergency Medical Services Authority — provides ambulance service to more than 1.1 million residents in northeast and central Oklahoma.
EMSA already had revealed in April how much it will pay in the settlement — $300,000.“This was in large part due the fact that EMSA had a strong defense,” the public trust said Monday. “It is still EMSA’s position that the profit cap was not illegal. No evidence was found that any of the money EMSA received was mismanaged nor that any individual has been personally enriched.
“EMSA will continue to operate at full capacity and our patients will see no lapse in their care.”
EMSA also had revealed in April approximately how much its former contractor and the contractor’s parent companies will pay. The Justice Department on Monday disclosed the exact amount — $20.649 million.
Paramedics Plus provided drivers, paramedics and emergency medical technicians to EMSA between 1998 and 2013. It is based in Texas and has new owners and a new name. The whistleblower who originally filed the lawsuit will get more than $4.9 million, the U.S. Justice Department also revealed Monday.
The whistleblower, Stephen Dean, is a former chief operating officer for Paramedics Plus.
“I believe this settlement ensures that performance contracts between EMSA and its ambulance service vendors will no longer include verbal ‘side deals’ between agency administrators and contracted companies and will instead be fully disclosed in written agreements,” Dean said Monday.
Also getting a share of the settlement is the state of Oklahoma, which intervened in the lawsuit after the federal government did. The state’s share is $2.9 million, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Mike Hunter said Monday.