Ex-Executive of NME Hospital Convicted of Felony Threat : Health care: Former administrator of psychiatric facility sent letter to co-worker who had criticized him.

In a bizarre twist to the National Medical Enterprises fraud scandal, a former chief executive of a then-NME-owned psychiatric hospital in Chula Vista was convicted Thursday on one felony charge of sending threatening communications to a former top manager of the hospital.

A U.S. District Court jury in San Diego deliberated for about three hours before finding Charles E. Trojan, 41, guilty of sending a threatening letter to Michael Clawson, a former program manager at Southwood Psychiatric Center. Trojan was upset because Clawson had publicly criticized Trojan’s management of the facility, prosecutors say.

The jury acquitted Trojan on a second count of sending a threatening letter to Robert and Merry Scheck, a San Diego couple whose daughter, Christy, committed suicide at Southwood in 1992. The Schecks had filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against the hospital.

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National Medical Enterprises, which changed its name to Tenet Healthcare Corp. this year, settled the Scheck suit out of court for an undisclosed sum in July, 1994. As part of the settlement, the Santa Monica-based company made an extraordinary admission, acknowledging that it was responsible for Christy’s death.

Tenet sold the Chula Vista hospital last August, said David McAdam, a company spokesman.

During testimony at the two-day trial, Trojan, who now lives in Denver, admitted to having sent the letters to Clawson and the Schecks, saying it was “the stupidest thing” he had ever done, said Carol Lam, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney’s office in San Diego.

Trojan, who could not be reached for comment, is scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 7 before U.S. District Judge Leland Nielsen. He faces up to five years in prison.

Trojan testified that he sent the letters in April, 1994, during a period in which the Schecks were pursuing their lawsuit against Southwood and after Clawson and the Schecks had appeared on a Fox network television program about the NME scandal, Lam said.

Trojan was chief executive of Southwood at the time of Christy’s death at age 13. FBI investigators arrested Trojan last December after identifying his fingerprints on the letters and after conducting a handwriting analysis.

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An FBI agent testified at the trial that at the time he mailed the letters, Trojan had also been a target of a criminal investigation related to possible medical fraud at Southwood, Lam said. The FBI refused to comment on whether that investigation is continuing.

In the letter to Clawson, according to Lam, Trojan wrote, in part: “The value of your life decreases every day. We have your address. So expect company one dark night when you least expect it. Your life is worthless now.”

At the time he sent the letters, Trojan was working at an NME facility in Texas. Clawson was fired from Southwood after his arrest in early 1993 on suspicion of possession of marijuana with intent to distribute, Lam said.

Clawson later pleaded guilty to marijuana charges in state court and was sentenced to probation.