http://www.ocregister.com/taxdollars/ensign-537797-lynch-therapy.html

http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-oc-nursing-home-firm-pays-48-million-to-settle-medicare-fraud-case-20131119,0,1604138.story#axzz2mxLt3tfy

The San Clemente CA Stake President is the Executive Vice President and Secretary of this company:

http://investor.ensigngroup.net/management.cfm



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/09/2013 01:42AM by PtLoma.

So the EVP is a stake president in the San Clemente Stake? That's only the beginning.

Take a look at the bios. For some reason they omit colleges, etc. I think the reason is clear: they want to hide how Mormon they are. "Ensign Group?" Give me a break.

Besides Stake President Gregory Stapley, look at the board of directors. Lee Daniels was a stake president in Japan. Clayton Christensen is the church's token intellectual at Harvard and used to be an Area Seventy. I'll bet there are a few other BYU grads lurking in the managerial suites and the board room.

Not to worry. Church leaders may occasionally fudge numbers but they don't sin. That's why the company admitted no guilt as it forked over the $48 million in donations to the federal regulators.

The management is almost totally LDS. The two men who Stake President Stapley works for, the CEO and the chairman, are both Mormon.

The chairman of the Ensign Group, Roy Christensen, and his wife donated $3 million to establish an academic post in Mormon Studies at Claremont Graduate University. They have more recently endowed a fellowship named after BYU Professor Robert L. Millet.

http://www.cgu.edu/pages/4546.asp?item=6616

Roy's son, Christopher, is the CEO of Ensign. He and his wife Claudia list as their hobbies spending time with their eight children and trying to "help The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints."

http://www.mcknights.com/profile-christopher-christensen--its-not-business-as-usual/article/179980/

Moving back to the board, I already mentioned Clay Christensen and Lee Daniels. Along with Roy and Christopher Christensen, that makes four Mormons. Another director who looks Mormon is Daren Shaw. Shaw's bio says that he has deep experience in finance, and there was a Daren J. Shaw with such a background who served as a bishop and then became part of a stake presidency in Oregon twenty years ago.

http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/22207/New-stake-presidencies.html

So assuming that I'm right about Shaw, it's tough for a non-Mormon to get a job in this company. The CEO, the chairman of the board, the Executive Vice President, and five of seven directors are all LDS. This is "the Mormon Way of Doing Business."

Agree. Companies that want to hide the fact that their leaders are primarily LDS will usually not include the schools attended. Since Stapley is an attorney, it's easy to look him up on the state bar:

http://members.calbar.ca.gov/fal/Member/Detail/801154

and he was BYU undergrad, University of Arizona law school. I believe he is a native of the greater Phoenix area, probably Mesa.

I don't know how closely he is related to Apostle Delbert Stapley, but he too was from the Phoenix area. Delbert Stapley is the one who wrote a reproaching letter [on Qof12 letterhead) to George Romney, chastising his support for the civil rights movement (Romney ignored the letter and only increased his support for the movement---something his son Mitt would never have the backbone to do).



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/09/2013 10:40AM by PtLoma.

I'm sorry for writing so much on this thread, but it has me upset.

This should be a scandal. That company's board of directors has an Area Authority, a Stake President, at least one more member of a stake presidency and several bishops. The top three managers are all prominent Mormons, one currently serving as a Stake President.

And the company just paid $48 million to settle fraud suits. Fraud. As in not "honest in your dealings with your fellow man." As in theft.

Will the church investigate these men for violating their temple covenants?

http://japansapporomission.blogspot.com/

He presided over the Japan Sapporo Mission from 2008-2011.

http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/print/37704/New-stake-presidencies.html

OK he was a SP in Japan.

You're right to be furious - fraud is fraud, and medicare fraud is a crime against the broader community.

In addition, 48 million is a lot of money, not just a mistake.

But maybe it doesn't matter because the broader community is mainly "gentiles".

Tom in Paris

Perhaps Annointed One (Tom Phillips) can add this to any expecting media blaze from whatever it is he is working on.

A little cherry riding the expected media cake feast.

here's hoping, anyway...

The article failed to mention any names, only the company. Stapley is in-house legal counsel.

I should add that I am a physician and at one time took care of one of the board members (not Stapley). I knew at the time that he had some connection to a chain of nursing homes, but this was in the early days of internet and I did not (yet) connect the dots.

They will all become mission presidents, even if convicted. You heard it here.

Absolutely. The same thing happened in Florida a couple of years ago where Healthcare Management Associates (a huge, nationwide healthcare company) was investigated for fraud.

Here is the 60 Minutes story:

http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/hospitals-the-cost-of-admission-50148539/

Apparently HMA is still being investigated by the feds.

The CEO at the time Gary Newsome, was a stake president in FL. Soon after the 60 Minutes story broke, Newsome 'retired' from HMA because he was called as a mission president to Uraguay:

http://www.hma.com/press-room/health-management-associates-ceo-gary-newsome-retire

To me it is almost unbelieveable that the church would take a CEO of a company under federal investigation for fraud and 'call' him to mission president.

Smells like a rat...

type of behavior?

I know how is to squirm & scrunge every fucking day to collect enough money to pay my doctors, employees.....

I don't think for a second paying 48 mil is enough punishment for these cheaters & money & religious whores....
They needed to go prison.

The Stapleys gave either $25K or $50K to Prop 8, I think he and his wife each gave $25K---making them the highest donors in San Juan Capistrano (which has two wards, one is in San Clemente stake, one is in Laguna Niguel stake---there are no LDS meetinghouses in SJC). I think they moved to SJC only a few years before 8.

The other reason they were recently in the news is that a proposal was submitted to the city council to place a "In God We Trust" sign in the lobby---at no cost to the city because "the local Mormon church was paying the costs". TSCC quickly clarified that the church itself wasn't paying for it, but that individual members had offered to donate the $2.5K cost. In other words, it was presented to the council as a "no cost item" that should be approved because it was free. No one looked at the larger issue of whether government should promote (or oppose) religion. Fortunately, after approval, it morphed beyond LDS control, in that the city and the nearby Mission San Juan Capistrano had copies of historic documents (Spanish land grants, city charters, Declaration of Indepedence, etc.) in storage, so they took a wall and made it into more of a historic document museum, with the "In God We Trust" placard barely noticeable.

Anyway, two local Mormons were quoted in the paper as offering to cover the cost of the placard, one was a guy who owns a cookie store in a nearby mall, the other was Deborah (Mrs. Greg) Stapley. Note: Stapley was named SP this summer, and the city hall incident was late winter/early spring, so it was several months before Deborah Stapley's husband became SP.

A fine is not sufficient for such a crime against the American people.

These guys should be doing the handcuffed perp walk in front of television cameras. They should be going to prison for a very long time. Their personal assets should be seized.

They should also extend the investigation to determine if any people died because of health care denied because of this fraud.

Covey Christensen, president of Flagstone, a subsidiary of Ensign Group, graduated from BYU. FYI. I am making no statement on the conduct of this person or others. The discussion here is about the LDS affiliation of any of these people:

http://www.wikinvest.com/stock/Ensign_Group_Inc_(ENSG)/Executive_Officers

Covey Christensen has served as President of our subsidiary, The Flagstone Group, Inc., which oversees the operation of 15 facilities in Southern California, since February 2008. He had previously served as the CEO and

17
Table of Contents
Administrator of the Company’s flagship facility, Southland Care Center & Home, since 2004. From 1999 until 2004, Mr. Covey Christensen served as the administrator in three of our facilities. He holds a B.S. in Accounting from Brigham Young University, and was an accountant with PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP before joining Ensign in 1999.

Christopher Christensen and Covey Christensen are sons of Roy Christensen and are cousins of John Albrechtsen. David Sedgwick is a brother-in-law of Gregory Stapley. John Albrechtsen is a nephew of Roy Christensen and a cousin of Christopher Christensen and Covey Christensen. Roy Christensen is the father of Christopher Christensen and Covey Christensen and an uncle of John Albrechtsen.

Correct, Stapley's wife's maiden name is Sedgwick, and her brother or cousin Donald serves as a school board trustee in a neighboring school district. To his credit/defense however, he first won election to the board as a pro-public schools (against vouchers, against the fundamentalists) candidate in an election in which control of the board nearly fell to evangelicals out to destroy public schools. He placed second in an at-large election for three seats, which displaced one of two fundamentalist board members (the one who was more over the top, he finished in #4 spot and was thus booted; the less egregious one finished in third place and thus won reelection). My guess is that the support of local Mormons helped Sedgwick, but without him the idiot who finished #4 would have been reelected:

https://www.saddlespace.org/SVUSD/boardofeducation/cms_page/view



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/09/2013 12:01PM by PtLoma.

Medicare fraud is rampant to the point that it's considered normal. Mormons don't fix systems, cultures or methods because they're trained to follow.

Isn't that exactly the opposite of what is taught in church? Just because your friends are drinking beer and smoking cigarettes doesn't mean you should. Mormons are supposed to set an example of righteousness.

The fact that so many of these people are in high leadership positions in the church, once again confirms to me that leadership positions in the church are based more on the size of you wallet, not the size of your spirit or godliness.

I wonder if any tithing funds were "invested" in this business?

That is what kills me. When you talk to conservatives about Medicare it is always about how 'welfare queens' are defrauding the government. You never hear about companies like this one who arguably steal a lot more money from the government. These guys are seen as shrewd businessmen striving to provide superior service to the elderly and less fortunate.

Thanks to everyone who looked into this story more thoroughly and came up with the mormon's behind the fraud.

Someone should send the info to the LA Times reporter, Stuart Pfeifer. Here's his Twitter feed: https://twitter.com/spfeifer22

I don't use Twitter, but someone who does could send him a link to this discussion.

The Scientologists and the Mormons: yup.

One thing I am confused about in such a Mormon operation is the number of women in executive positions.

Not sure whether these are token placements for optics, or whether LDS man club was compromised because these women are better scammers.

The classic tug of war between blatant sexual discrimination vs. absolute greed.

"Ensign Group" makes it sound like it is actually a for-profit venture owned by the LDS church, managed and operated through LDS employees.

I found this interesting:

"One of the lawsuits alleged that Ensign encouraged the fraudulent billing by setting unreasonable goals for Medicare billing and rewarding employees for hitting "audacious goals," said attorney Larry P. Zoglin, who represented an Ensign whistle-blower in one of the lawsuits.

"The company was pressuring administrators to achieve goals that realistically could be met only by cheating Medicare,” said Zoglin, who is of counsel to the law firm Phillips & Cohen.

Sounds just like the baptism goals I remember being given as a ward mission leader.

medicare fraud has long been Known to be a gathering place for low-life shysters...

I 'love it' /sarcasm when lawyers, CPAs, etc say: 'Well, these were ONLY highly-technical, specialized allegations; we admitted no crimes or wrong-doing,' ... blah blah blah

LDS medicare fraud ? no contradiction there folks.

Being as how most (all?) of the officers of this 'baby Corp' had TRs, ... I'm guessing NONE of them will be asked/challenged about this situation regarding future LDS 'callings'.

PLUS: I'd like to know the (re)payment terms of these penalties... 30 days, 60-90 days, or (GASP) Longer?

are these things covered by (GASP GASP) Bankruptcy filings?

nothing to see here Folks, move along.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/09/2013 12:33PM by guynoirprivateeye.

By their fruits ye shall know them.

I actually think that the executive management of LDS Inc would look favorably on this. Not because of the getting caught, rather by the astronomical number of dollars they took from the American people. Kind of a Waynes World "we're not worthy" moment.

People forget that LDS Inc hates the US government, and will continue to war with them, even though they get their butts kicked every time.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/09/2013 12:21PM by deco.

What is interesting about this story is that the culture of Ensign Group is so very much like Mormonism. Anyone who has been on a mission in recent decades knows that you are supposed to set "audacious goals" and then fill in the blanks. If you have to find a mentally disabled person who doesn't understand the lessons to get another baptism, you do it. If you taught three discussions and tried to teach another one on a bus, well, that counts as four discussions. If you are a home or visiting teacher and you called and left a message at somebody's house, that counts as a "visit." What the Ensign Group does with big goals and ethical compromises to achieve them is exactly what Mormon leaders make ordinary Mormons do every day.

Then there is the nepotism and the "checking the boxes" hiring of people with long church resumes. I don't know if the Mormon church invested anything in this company, but I'm sure they got tithing money from it.

I have no idea whether any of those people did anything illegal. But the culture of the company they formed is extremely Mormon. When you run a religion like the LDS do, you teach people how to start multi-level marketing firms and how to bilk naive customers or distant government agencies. By their fruits ye shall know them.

It seems the government learned of the bilking through two whistle blowers who refused to play the Mormon game.
Good for them!

People usually only do this as a last resort, when demands and behavior by supervisors/owners becomes so outrageous that victims see no other way out.

Reminds me a lot of when I was on a grand jury that heard testimony on a cocaine smuggling case in which one of the principals, a dentist, talked about how he and the others were "special" people, professional people, under a tremendous amount of stress and therefore totally different than the (other) lowlife drug addicts and drug peddlers.

These "special" lds guys are totally different (and more worthy) than the (other) lowlife con men who perpetrate fraud, and just to show their "special worthiness," they are going to donate $48 million to the needy government.