Former Loretto Hospital executive accused of embezzling nearly $500,000
Loretto Hospital in Austin. During the pandemic, the city cut off the hospital’s supply of COVID-19 vaccines after learning that the hospital was giving shots to people who weren’t qualified to receive them.
Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times file
A former executive at Loretto Hospital has been charged with helping to embezzle nearly half a million dollars from the West Side facility during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Heather Bergdahl, 37, was charged with embezzlement from a federally funded program in a criminal complaint filed last week.
The charges derive from an ongoing federal grand jury investigation into Loretto Hospital’s COVID-19 vaccination program in which doses were given to people not yet eligible to receive them, including Cook County judges and employees at the Trump International Hotel & Tower.
Bergdahl, as the safety-net hospital’s chief transformation officer, is accused of issuing 11 checks worth $486,540 to bank accounts of companies under the name of someone only identified as "Individual A" in the criminal complaint.
Details of "Individual A's" employment history listed in the complaint match those of former Loretto Hospital Chief Financial Officer Dr. Anosh Ahmed, who has not been criminally charged.
Bergdahl allegedly started sending the checks in June 2021 when Ahmed created the business bank accounts. Ahmed’s companies then sent tens of thousands of dollars back to Bergdahl within the next several months, according to the complaint.
Bergdahl was arrested last week in Houston, where she currently resides. She appeared in federal court Monday and was ordered to be released on bond.
Ahmed resigned from the hospital in March 2021, on the same day that the Loretto Hospital board of trustees voted to fire him in connection with the unauthorized vaccine distribution.
Around the same time, city officials cut off Loretto Hospital’s vaccine supply after learning of previous doses that were administered to individuals who did not qualify for the vaccine at a time when it was in short supply.
Bergdahl left the hospital in March 2022, a month before Loretto Hospital CEO George Miller resigned.