The former marketing director of Janesville, WI-based Mercyhealth pleaded guilty to wire fraud and tax evasion, part of a five-year, multimillion-dollar scheme with an alleged accomplice to defraud the health care provider using kickbacks from inflated invoices for marketing services, the State Journal reports.
Barbara Bortner, 57, who was Mercyhealth’s vice president of marketing and public relations, faces up to 25 years in prison when she is sentenced Feb. 17.
The plea agreement states the loss to Mercyhealth was more than $3.1 million, and the tax loss to the federal government for 2018, the year covering the tax fraud count that was charged against Bortner, was $263,846. Read more.
