Cigna Worker Pleads Guilty to $496,000 Medical Claims Fraud

Robert Harrelson looked to be an employer’s dream when he went to work for the Cigna Corp. early this year as a medical claims representative.

He was a former Olympic athlete, a man with previous experience as a collections analyst, an employee who seemed enthusiastic about his job.

Harrelson fit in immediately at Cigna’s claims center in Northridge, processing hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical insurance claims and, with his experience as a member of the 1984 Spanish Olympic basketball team, scoring big points for the company squad.

“Rick,” he wrote in a note to his new Cigna boss, “I just love this job. Thanx for hiring me.”

Questions Arose

The doubts began when Harrelson started showing up for the company basketball games in a BMW. What, the others wanted to know, was a guy who was making less than $24,000 a year doing driving such an expensive car?

Cigna officials began to ask questions when they noticed that the hundreds of thousands of dollars in billings from Personal Service Nursing Care, a San Fernando Valley nursing care service, were not being received in the weeks when Harrelson was not on the job.

Officials soon found that there was no such firm and that at least $496,986 in claims paid to the nursing service were deposited in the bank account of a man who looked a lot like Harrelson.

It all unraveled in August, when it was learned that Harrelson was not Harrelson, but actually Robert Snyder--a man with a record of three previous arrests for bad checks and false statements. It was also learned that neither Harrelson, nor Snyder, were ever on any Olympic basketball team.

Numerous Purchases

And it was also found that the enthusiastic young claims representative had acquired not only the BMW, but a Honda Accord, $35,200 worth of Leroy Neiman and Walasse Ting paintings, six $600 custom suits, a coin collection, several gold bracelets, a $10,000 vending machine franchise, $10,000 worth of furniture, a Cadillac for his father and made a down payment on a house in Canoga Park and another one in Hawaii--all on the proceeds of his employment with Cigna.

“He left a trail a mile wide,” said U.S. Postal Service Inspector Gary Austin, who headed the investigation into the spending spree that concluded with Snyder/Harrelson’s arrest Sept. 16 after a car chase in Honolulu.

On Monday, Snyder/Harrelson pleaded guilty in Los Angeles federal court to four counts of mail fraud, admitting that he created the phony nursing service with a post office box address, set up the bank account under an alias and diverted false claims under legitimate Cigna account numbers into the account.

The admissions, entered before U.S. District Judge Pamela Ann Rymer, could bring him up to 20 years in prison and a $1-million fine. Rymer set sentencing for Dec. 19.

Assistant U.S. Atty. David Katz, who prosecuted the case, said the man known as Harrelson disappeared on Aug. 11, as soon as Cigna officials notified him that he was being suspended pending an investigation.

Last-Minute Rush

Harrelson moved his wife and infant child out of their Canoga Park apartment, fled with them to Hawaii and began a last-minute rush to try to get back thousands of dollars he had spent on down payments, the BMW and the paintings, Katz said.

U.S. Postal Service agents were always a day or two behind him as he moved from hotel to hotel, the prosecutor said--until they got a tip that he was about to sell the BMW at a dealership in Honolulu.

Austin called every luxury car dealer in Honolulu, finally finding one who knew Harrelson and said he was due in that afternoon to pick up his money. A team of federal agents arrived at the dealership five minutes after Harrelson.

“He’s just walking out as they’re coming in,” Katz recounted.

Car Chase

Harrelson apparently recognized the authorities and made a dash for a taxicab and took off, the prosecutor said. The agents raced to their car and a pursuit ensued through rush-hour traffic before the cab was stopped several blocks away.

In Harrelson’s pocket was a plane ticket to Los Angeles under the name of Robert Anderson. Federal authorities said there would have been little chance they would have caught the man had he made it to the airport.

According to court affidavits, Snyder/Harrelson, bragging about how “easy” the scam at Cigna had been, had told his wife he planned to go into the claims business again--under a new name in a new city.

“We got lucky,” Katz said.