OMAHA, Neb. (KMTV) — Lisa Kwapniowski, former Director of Pharmacy Services for Children's Hospital, was sentenced to 48 months of imprisonment in federal court Monday with no parole.
Starting sometime before 2010, Kwapniowski submitted fraudulent invoices to the hospital from legitimate pharmaceutical suppliers. In early 2012, she set up a business called RxSynergy.
Soon after setting up the business, Kwapniowski knowingly started submitting fraudulent invoices from RxSynergy to Children's Hospital for payment.
A press release from the Department of Justice says the invoices purported to be for pharmaceuticals and supplies; however, neither RxSynergy nor Kwapniowski provided any goods to the hospital in relation to the invoices.
A number of the invoices were for a drug called Broxcilam, which does not exist.
Between Jan. 2012 and Nov. 2013, Kwapniowski submitted fake invoices to the hospital that appeared to come from PharMedium, a legitimate pharmaceutical vendor.
Using a PayPal vendor's account Kwapniowski created using the name Advantage RX, she utilized PayPal to make a payment to the Advantage RX account using a Children's Hospital corporate credit card.
Kwapniowski submitted the fake PharMedium invoices along with an internal approval form to Children's Hospital, which acted as justification for the hospital to pay the outstanding corporate credit card bill, the press release says.
Children's Hospital then paid the credit card company directly. Kwapniowski then transferred funds from the fake Advantage RX PayPal account to her personal bank account.
Kwapniowski fraudulently invoiced the hospital at least 227 times between 2012 and 2018, defrauding the hospital out of more than $4 million.
After her release from prison, Kwapniowski will serve a 3-year term of supervised release and is ordered to pay $3.742 million in restitution.
The case was investigated by the FBI.
