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Crime does pay at UW

By Bob Williams, Evergreen Freedom Foundation

In 1988, a University of Washington neurosurgeon garnered sanctions against the school when he allowed his medical students to see carefully guarded test books before a national exam. Students were required to take the exam off campus for a year after the cheating incident, and an outside proctor monitored the tests for four years.

The same neurosurgeon is responsible for a two-and-a-half year federal investigation of Medicaid and Medicare billing fraud at the university, which cost taxpayers and/or patients $10 million. Facing a grand jury indictment, Dr. Richard Winn pled guilty to one count of obstructing the investigation, and agreed to pay the federal government $500,000 for his illegal activity. He admits that he asked individuals to lie or omit information for him and created an "atmosphere of fear and intimidation" among his department staff.

So when does Dr. Winn leave for jail? He doesn't. UW is giving him a $950,000 to $3.7 million severance package; rather, university medical patients are, since his gilt-edged severance package will be funded from medical center revenues. Winn will receive up to $3.7 million over the next few years depending on his ability to find another prestigious position in neurosurgery.

Dr. Winn's severance package also stipulates that he will not lose his license to practice and he will not repay the $500,000 UW physicians spent defending him in court. He had previously agreed to pay legal costs if he was convicted.

This outrage comes on the heels of another scam uncovered at UW, in which an employee falsified her timesheets for 16 years with the approval of several different managers. One manager even told her that falsely recorded hours were "common practice throughout the university."

The UW is suffering from an ethics crisis. Not only through the individuals working there, but through the regents, trustees and president who have taken no meaningful action to address the problem and restore the public trust.

Everyone involved in these scams—whether they were perpetrating them or sweeping them under the rug—should be fired. Until that happens, it will be clear that crime truly does pay at our state's largest public university.

Bob Williams is president of the Olympia-based Evergreen Freedom Foundation, a non-profit public policy research organization.

Evergreen Freedom Foundation P.O. Box 552, Olympia, WA 98507 Phone: (360) 956-3482, Fax: (360) 352-1874 Email: effwa@effwa.org