Former Children’s Hospital administrator sentenced for fraud

From: U.S. Attorney’s Office Press Release

United States Attorney Joe Kelly announced that Lisa Kwapniowski, age 49, of Omaha, Nebraska, was sentenced Monday in federal court for wire fraud. 

Senior United States District Court Judge Laurie Smith Camp sentenced Kwapniowski to 48 months of imprisonment.  There is no parole in the federal system. 

After her release from prison, Kwapniowski will begin a 3-year term of supervised release.  She was also ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $3.742 million. 

From 2010 to 2018, Kwapniowski, the former Director of Pharmacy Services for Children’s Hospital and Medical Center (“Children’s Hospital”) located in Omaha, Nebraska, defrauded Children’s Hospital out of more than $4,622,234. 

Beginning sometime prior to 2010, Kwapniowski submitted to Children’s Hospital fraudulent invoices from legitimate pharmaceutical suppliers.  In early 2012, Kwapniowski set up a business called RxSynergy.  Soon after setting up RxSynergy, Kwapniowski knowingly began to submit fraudulent invoices from RxSynergy to Children’s Hospital for payment.  The invoices purported to be for pharmaceuticals and supplies, however, neither RxSynergy nor Kwapniowski ever provided any goods to Children’s Hospital in relation to the invoices.  A number of the RxSynergy invoices were for a drug called Broxcilam, which is not a real drug. 

Kwapniowski fraudulently invoiced Children’s Hospital at least 227 times between 2012 and 2018.

Between January 2012 and November 2013 Kwapniowski submitted fraudulent invoices to Children’s Hospital that appeared to come from PharMedium, a legitimate pharmaceutical vendor.  Kwapniowski created fraudulent invoices directed to Children’s Hospital that appeared to come from PharMedium. 

Using a PayPal vendor’s account Kwapniowski had created using the name Advantage RX, Kwapniowski would utilize PayPal’s website to make a payment to the Advantage RX PayPal account, using a Children’s Hospital corporate credit card.  Kwapniowski would submit to Children’s Hospital the fraudulent PharMedium invoices along with an internal approval form, which would act as the justification for Children’s Hospital to pay the outstanding corporate credit card bill.  Children’s Hospital would pay the credit card company directly.  Kwapniowski then transferred funds from the fraudulent Advantage RX PayPal account to her personal bank account.

This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.