Ex-Hospital Manager is Seeking Probation

Jul. 13–Former Mercy Hospital manager David Hileman, who accepted more than $600,000 in bribes from a contractor and secretly billed the hospital for a $125,000 Edgewood home, says he was little more than a dupe in a kickback conspiracy and that he’s too old and feeble at 75 to go to prison.

He wants probation when he gets sentenced next month for his role in a commercial bribery ring operating at Mercy and UPMC Shadyside hospitals and Allegheny Power in Greensburg.

But federal prosecutors say he was a corrupt insider who abused his position of trust by approving phony bills in exchange for a house, cars and cash as part of a scheme that cost the nonprofit hospital $4.3 million.

In court papers, Assistant U.S. Attorney James Garrett said Hileman, former director of construction planning, was an “essential cog” in the conspiracy with Tom and Susan Burtoft, former owners of LaMarca Corp. of Monroeville, whose various companies did renovation work at Mercy from 1994 to 2000.

“He was motivated by greed, and acted with arrogance,” said Garrett in asking a judge to give Hileman a sentence providing “the strongest possible condemnation and punishment.”

Federal sentencing guidelines, although no longer mandatory, call for a term of 37 to 46 months.

Garrett said Hileman, one of four accused managers at the hospitals and utility, does not deserve any leniency for his age, health or family considerations. Lots of white-collar criminals could make the same claim, he said, since most are older, have families and have risen to positions of standing that make their crimes possible in the first place.

The prosecutor also ridiculed Hileman’s argument that he should get a reduced sentence because the government took so long to bring its case. The investigation, spearheaded by the Criminal Investigation Division of the Internal Revenue Service and U.S. postal inspectors, has been going on for five years.

But Garrett said Hileman, who pleaded guilty in March before he was indicted, could have come forward sooner and saved everyone time and effort.

Hileman argued that he cooperated with agents after he pleaded, but Garrett said that cooperation was not particularly helpful. Hileman said he couldn’t remember a lot of the details, for example.

“Investigators were left with the impression,” Garrett said, “that Hileman was more interested in minimizing his own guilt than in providing cooperation.”

Garrett also rejected Hileman’s argument that his crimes were the product of the “corrupting influence” of the Burtofts and not really his fault.

The Kentucky couple, formerly of Murrysville, admitted to paying off Hileman and others with cash, cars, guns, vacation properties and remodeling work.

Garrett said a search of the Burtofts’ home turned up handwritten instructions by Hileman about how best to conduct the fraud.

“The reality is that Hileman’s personal culpability was active, disgraceful and extreme,” Garrett said.

The prosecutor also included numerous illustrations of how Hileman’s greed escalated.

Not content with the Beech Street home the Burtofts bought for him in 1994 — which was ultimately paid for by overbilling the hospital — Hileman had their employees build a two-car, heated garage on the property.

When Hileman’s girlfriend was arrested for drunk driving in Ohio, Garrett said, he had the Burtofts pay for her lawyer, and later for $28,000 of remodeling on her house.

In addition to Hileman, the other big players prosecuted in the scheme are Jeffrey L. Davidson, former head of maintenance construction at Mercy; Demaree Hite, former head of construction at UPMC Shadyside; and Brian Ramsey, a former manager in the building services department at Allegheny Power.

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