Timmons Resigns From Hacienda, Previous Cover-Ups Alleged

Bill Timmons, chief executive officer of Hacienda HealthCare resigned on Monday, after news broke about a vegetative patient in his company’s care gave birth to a healthy baby boy on December 29. Timmons’ resignation was accepted unanimously by the Hacienda Board of Directors.

According to KPHO a former Hacienda manager claimed that Timmons was behind the cover-up of abuses of a different patient that occurred in 1988.

Hacienda, and Timmons, who is politically well-connected, have been at the center of quiet controversy in 2016, according to Arizona Department of Economic Security records. Accusations of cover up efforts by Timmons and Arizona Governor Doug Ducey are a basis for a pending lawsuit brought against the state by former Arizona Department of Economic Security (DES) director, Tim Jeffries, and the Department’s chief investigator, Charles Loftus.

In documents related to the Notice of Claim, Jeffries and Loftus lay out the details of the attempt to cover-up what they believed was fraudulent billing of the state by Hacienda. The two men imply that Timmons, as a donor to Governor Ducey and others, received preferential treatment in the handling of the fraud by authorities..

From Plaintiff’s First Supplemental Disclosure Statement:

● An example of the pattern of corruption and cover-up by the Governor’s Chief of Staff, is as follows: As the head of the Department of economic security, Jeffries accumulated a mass of information indicating corruption or malfeasance in the expenditure of tens of millions of dollars for computer services which were implemented by the Department of economic security.

● Jeffries disclosed this information at the governor’s office and asked that the situation be corrected. The governor’s office did not act on this request. Instead, the governor’s office launched a massive cover-up operation, to prevent the facts discovered by Jeffries to come to the attention of the public.

● Charles Loftus was Chief Law Enforcement Officer for the Department of Economic Security at the time an investigation into Hacienda Healthcare, Inc. and William Timmons, its CEO, located at 1402 E. South Mountain Ave., Phoenix, AZ 85042, was brought to his attention by DES Chief Auditor Derek Barber. Hacienda and its many sister companies provided advanced heath care for disabled children.

● As described to Loftus, this was an investigation into an apparent gross over-billing, aka fraud, in excess of two million dollars.

● Barber and others, including Dr. Laura Love, Assistant Director of the Division of Developmental Disabilities, notified Loftus that Hacienda was owned by its CEO, William Timmons. Timmons was a campaign donor to and friend of the Governor. Therefore, the investigation had political sensitivity. Hacienda had refused to disclose documents to DES which had been subpoenaed.

● Opening a criminal case is the next standard procedure. DES was also considering cancelling it’s contract with Hacienda and its sister companies. That would have caused an immediate urgent need to relocate approximately 35 severely ill children. Pursuant to protocols of deconfliction and conflict of interest, Loftus did not want the DES Special Agents, who are Arizona Peace Officers, to investigate this matter, because these Special Agents are at-will employees who report to the Governor.

● Loftus, having served as the Assistant Special Agent in Charge at the Arizona Attorney General’s Office, was aware this would not be the first and only investigation by the Arizona Attorney General’s Office into the activities of Hacienda and William Timmons.

● Loftus sought to move the case to the Arizona Attorney General’s Office with the concurrence of his supervisors. Therefore, Loftus took the case to the Arizona Attorney General’s Office for investigation and prosecution.

● Loftus and Barber met with Special Agent Supervisor Mark McClain and Coordinator James Schwegel of the Medicaid Fraud Unit at the Arizona Attorney General’s Office, and presented the known evidence re Hacienda and Timmons.

● McClain said the AGO would open a case, and later provided documentary confirmation to Loftus that the AGO had opened a case. A few days later, Jeffries and Loftus were informed by Kirk Adams, the Governor’s Chief of Staff, that their employment at DES was terminated.

● Adams had been hired as Chief of Staff despite the fact that he had been fined $1 million by the State of California for laundering political dark money.

● Previously, Adams had been campaign manager for Attorney General Brnovich, who benefited from over $700,000 of dark money advertising.

● The Attorney General took no action regarding Hacienda.

● Jeffries and Loftus were scheduled to testify before the House committee on federalism, property rights and public policy, to discuss the corruption or massive malfeasance causing the state tens of millions of dollars. They were prepared to testify that the governor’s office was interfering with investigations when known donors and suspected friends of the governor came under investigation.

● The governor’s office, through its friends at the legislature, canceled the hearing. House Majority Leader John Allen advised Committee Chairman Thorpe that the testimony was not to proceed. Instead, the governor’s office offered an appearance by Morgan Reed, the states CIO. But then Reed notified the legislature that he was unable to make the meeting as well.

According to sources, it took a lawsuit by the State against Timmons to get him to comply with subpoenas. He fought every attempt to release any financial information in the case of a second in the last five years over billing investigation of Hacienda.

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