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A Chicago businessman is accused of swindling two university hospitals out of millions of dollars after promising to provide personal protective equipment last spring. Instead, Dennis Haggerty, president of At Diagnostics, a Chicago biotechnology company, spent some of the money on luxury cars, according to a complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago.
Haggerty and his two business partners made a deal with a vice president at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics to provide the hospital with 500,000 N95 masks for $2.95 million. One of Haggerty’s partners made the deal, but Haggerty was listed as the contact person on the purchase agreement, the Gazette reported.
Haggerty sent an invoice to the hospital on behalf of At Diagnostics, but the wire information was for an account called At Media, Inc., which authorized Haggerty as a signer. He told his partner the account was for At Diagnostics, the complaint alleged.
The PPE never arrived at UIHC. After several withdrawals and transfers between Haggerty’s various accounts and altered bank documents, Haggerty allegedly moved more than $1.6 million from one of his accounts to another. After a civil suit in June, $600,000 of the hospital’s funds remained in one of Haggerty’s accounts.
UIHC did not respond to the Gazette’s request for comment.
Hospital bank records show Haggerty has wired $850,000 to the hospital but that the hospital still has not received about $1.65 million of the nearly $2.5 million, according to the Gazette.
The complaint also accused Haggerty of swindling an unnamed Chicago university hospital out of more than $1.2 million.
