What if John Gotti Headed Up the Task Force To Stop the Mafia

Robert Brown's tenure as head trustee for Grady Hospital is eventful for sure. Upon taking over in the mid 1990's the hospital faced a series of issues from budget problems, to corruption, to egregiously poor health care. In 1998, Grady Hospital settled with the state of Georgia for $4.5 million dollars in a suit of Medicare fraud. The investigation covered four years and several of those involved the tenure of Robert Brown. While the Attorney General found no criminal violations, the sheer number of the settlement speaks for itself. Had this been the only run in with the law that Grady had under his tenure, it frankly wouldn't be an issue. It wasn't though. The most egregious case of criminality came when State Senator Charles Walker was charged with 137 separate offenses and convicted of 127 of those counts. (unbelievably Walker, his daughter and the companies they ran were the only ones charged or convicted) Grady was one of a handful of hospitals that was the target of much of this criminality.

This criminality began in the late 1990's and lasted all the way until his indictment in 2002. As I have already pointed out, a source told me that the chief prosecution witness, Joyce Harris, accused Robert Brown of several incendiary crimes along with pointing a huge finger at Walker. Harris accused Brown of such things as witness intimidation and accepting sexual favors for contracts at Grady. Harris is not the only one to point the finger at Robert Brown as far as corruption goes. Here is what Ron Marshall of the Grady Coalition had to say about Robert Brown, (from an article emailed to me. I can't seem to locate it online)

It was Robert Brown who insisted that no-bid contracts be given to former Senator Charles Walker, who is now serving ten years in prison for 127 felonies, many of which were committed at Grady with Brown's knowledge.

Furthermore, I am holding onto a 223 page report filed with the Dekalb Ethics Committee that charged Robert Brown with among other things: quid pro quos, retaliation, kickbacks, and obstruction of justice.

Since corruption doesn't exist in a vacuum, Brown's tenure was often met with financial woes. While the current financial woes facing Grady are the most extreme they have ever been, this is not the first time Grady has faced financial turmoil. For instance, here is how things looked in 2001 for Grady.

Board members of the state's largest public hospital want to know how the struggling charity-care provider plans to dig itself out of deepening financial trouble.

Grady Memorial Hospital's 10-member board is scheduled to meet July 23 to, in part, review recent audit results showing the hospital suffered a $17.2 million loss last year and is now operating in the red.

"We were told [Grady] would have an $8 million shortfall this year and that [CEO Edward Renford] would come up with a proposal in July to fix it," said board member Bill Loughrey.

Grady leaders have remained tight-lipped about specific plans for a recovery, but a spokesperson for the hospital said discussions are under way and that any changes would be cleared through patients and employees of the hospital first.

In fact, the current plethora of editorials and analysis that can be found in any current Atlanta area newspaper have a familiar ring to them.

Finally, and most importantly, the Center Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) of the Department of Health and Human Services did an exhaustive investigation of Grady Hospital that ended right around the time that Charles Walker trial ended. Here is the scathing conclusion of that investigation. (Again, I hold onto a hard copy myself though I cannot find it online) They identified...

an immediate and serious threat to the health and safety of the patients

It was after this scathing report came out, that finally Robert Brown was forced out of his position at Grady. Not to worry, upon leaving Grady, Robert Brown was able to snag a lucrative position on the state's transportation board MARTA.

Now, let's get back to the unconventional title of my piece. In my opinion, if there things weren't rotten at Grady, Emory University, and Atlanta at large, along with investigating State Senator Charles Walker, the powers that be would have investigated Brown to see if he should occupy the cell next to Walker. If things weren't rotten at Grady, Emory, and Atlanta at large, the powers that be would investigate Brown's architecture firm R L Brown & Associates and see if he ever gave his own company any sweetheart deals while he served as the Chief Trustee at Grady Hospital. If things weren't so rotten though, someone besides Walker would have been charged with some crime, because I find it impossible to believe that one person could be convicted of so many crimes and no one else did anything wrong.

Things are rotten, so instead of being investigated, Robert Brown finds himself as a prominent member of the Grady Task Force. The task force was set up the come up with solutions to the current fiscal crisis. Robert Brown, who oversaw Grady as it tumbled into financial crisis, is now one of the people in charge of getting it out of the crisis. Excuse me, if this doesn't seem like John Gotti being asked to come up with solutions to dealing with the Mafia.

The problem is this. Grady Hospital is a public hospital and so it is run with tax payer money. Grady's financial woes will probably take an influx of roughly 100 million dollars of tax payer money. If the funds are being directed by the very people that created the problem, then each tax payer is about to sink more of their money into a black hole of corruption and incompetence.