Former Alabama Organ Center executives charged with health care fraud, mail fraud

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama 
Two former executives of the Alabama Organ Center have been charged with health care fraud and mail fraud and both men have agreed to plead guilty to the charges, U.S. Attorney Joyce White Vance announced today.
 
A document filed in U.S. District Court charges former director Demosthenes Yanga Lalisan, 45, and Richard Alan Hicks, 39, the former associate director, with receiving more than $498,000 in kickbacks from a local funeral home that did business with the organ center.
 
Authorities did not release the name of the funeral home.
 
Lalisan and Hicks were fired in August after a federal investigation was made public.
 
Vance said the two men have entered separate plea agreements with the government.
 
A news release from Vance's spokeswoman, Peggy Sanford, outlines the charges against the two:
 
From sometime in 2003 until about July 2011, Lalisan and Hicks received kickbacks in exchange for promoting the funeral home and recommending its hiring by the organ center.
 
"Neither Lalisan nor Hicks disclosed to the organ center or the foundation that they were receiving payments from the funeral home. Both men falsely represented to the foundation that neither of them had any financial conflicts of interest from customers, suppliers, contractors or competitors, according to the court documents," Sanford's statement read.
 
Vance said while Lalisan's and Hicks's conduct did not endanger donors or recipients of organs or tissue, it did violate the public trust.
 
The center is the federally approved organ procurement organization for the state and provides kidneys, hearts, lungs, livers, pancreases and other tissues to UAB Hospital's transplant program and for other surgeries statewide.
 
"We can't and won't tolerate fraud in our community. My office is committed to punishing criminals who engage in health care and mail fraud," Vance said.
 
Lalisan, who graduated from UAB with a biology degree and received a master's degree there, was named director of the Alabama Organ Center in 2006 and had worked at the center for 14 years before that.
 
Hicks, who also graduated from UAB and attended the school of public health there, worked at the center since 1999, according to his resume.