Police Probe Alleged Bribes at Cedars-Sinai

Los Angeles police are probing allegations that construction contractors bribed a Cedars-Sinai Medical Center executive to win millions of dollars in contracts, sources said.

Hospital officials are reviewing nearly two dozen contracts worth between $25,000 and $1.2 million each for construction and renovation work over the last five years.

Kevin Flicker, 41, a hospital construction manager who had worked at the renowned Westside hospital since late 1994 and who oversaw the contracts, was arrested for commercial bribery Dec. 8 after he allegedly accepted $4,000 in cash from a contractor bidding on projects there, police said.

Flicker was suspended by the hospital and submitted his resignation by electronic mail the next day, hospital officials said. He is scheduled to appear in court Wednesday for his arraignment. He could not be reached for comment.

Sources said the hospital is examining whether Flicker and at least two major contractors built an elaborate scheme to rig construction bids in a manner that avoided detection by the hospital’s internal auditing system.

Cedars-Sinai policies require that it seek a minimum of three bids for each project and hire the contractor offering the lowest bid.

Now the hospital--which said it spends about $10 million a year on remodeling--wants to know if two or more contractors agreed in advance which of them would post the lowest bid on certain projects. That agreed-upon bid would come in at a premium over the actual cost of the project, hospital officials theorize, allowing the builders to pad the contract.

“The hospital had documentation of three bids, which it had every reason to believe were legitimate bids,” said Peter Braveman, the medical center’s general counsel. “The internal auditing process would check to see if there are three bids and if they’re reasonable. If they’re marginally out of line, that’s difficult” to detect, Braveman said.

Braveman said hospital administrators first heard rumors about “irregularities” in its bidding system last spring and later reported the problem to authorities.

Cedars-Sinai’s projects also are subject to oversight by the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development, or OSHPD, which enforces building codes. David Keast, an attorney for the office’s facilities division, said its field inspectors visit the site of Cedars’ projects.

OSHPD officials said they were not aware of any structural flaws in Cedars’ construction and remodeling projects. But while the office reviews projects to ensure that workmanship meets the state building codes for hospitals, it does not examine whether the contracts appear too expensive.

Hospital officials have asked employees and contractors with information about improper bidding practices to come forward.

“Institutionally, we view this very seriously,” Braveman said. “It’s an absolutely unacceptable breach.”