In U.S. District Court in Pittsburgh yesterday, Judge Marilyn Horan sentenced the former president of an Ohio healthcare company to serve 42 months in federal prison, plus three years of probation for defrauding Indiana-based S&T Bank of $59.24 million dollars last year.
67-year-old Harold Sosna of Cincinnati used a check kiting scheme to channel 203 checks totaling more than $118 million through S&T and Cincinnati-based First Financial Bank. He used the practice to “trick the banks into honoring checks drawn against accounts with insufficient funds”, according to federal prosecutors.
Sosna’s company, Premier Healthcare Management of Blue Ash, Ohio, managed nine nursing care facilities in Ohio. The business fell on hard times in 2017 and the situation became worse when the pandemic struck, according to Sosna’s attorney.
Sosna perpetrated the scheme over a three-day period in May of 2020 and when one of the banks flagged the transactions, he went to the U.S. Attorney in Cincinnati and admitted his crime. The case was handled in Pittsburgh because S&T Bank was the primary victim.
Judge Horan deferred a restitution judgment until the exact amount of the losses is determined.
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