Law & Justice & ambulances firegeezer on 27 Jun 2008 09:32 am
Feds Looking Into Pennsylvania Amb. Firm
THE TRANS-MED AMBULANCE CO. IN LUZERNE COUNTY, Pennsylvania (Wilkes-Barre/Scranton area), is drawing interest from several government investigators.
It has recently been discovered that a county Senior Judge, Michael T. Conahan, who just retired at the first of this year, is a shareholder and director of the company. While holding his position on the bench, Trans-Med was awarded more than $47,000 to provide medical transports from a county-owned nursing home. So far, nobody has been able to confirm that Trans-Med ever had a valid contract with the county to provide the service.
This disclosure came about during an investigation by the U. S. Dept. of Labor into Trans-Med’s employee practices that resulted in an order to Trans-Med to pay $23,470 in back wages to the ambulance workers for improperly calculated overtime pay.
As one thing leads to another, the FBI and the IRS are now investigating Judge Conahan’s financial links to another county judge and an attorney who is part-owner of a juvenile detention facility that has favorable contracts with the county. Last week the FBI executed a search warrant to review county records relating to the contracts.
Dave Janoski of the Wilkes-Barre Citizens Voice has been working the story HERE and HERE.
