An FBI whistleblower is once again coming forward with his story, hoping to shed light on what he calls a criminal enterprise led by Florida Governor Rick Scott back in the 1990s when Scott ran healthcare company Columbia HCA.
John Schilling worked for Columbia as an accountant from 1993 to 1995.
During a news conference Monday, arranged by the campaign of Scott’s opponent Charlie Crist, Schilling said shortly after being hired, he discovered the healthcare firm had two sets of books, one to file with the Medicare program, and another used for internal bookkeeping.
He says the reports sent to Medicare overbilled the government program by hundreds of millions of dollars.
Schilling says he told his bosses of the questionable accounting practices, but he was told to keep quiet. Schilling says he has no doubt Scott knew what was going on.
“He was running a multi-billion dollar company, and ignorance is no excuse,” he said. “I mean, you have to know what’s going on in your organization. Do we want someone to govern our state who doesn’t know what is going on?”
Schilling told his story four years ago as well, when Scott first ran for governor.
He says he is supporting Charlie Crist in this year’s gubernatorial election.
Ultimately, Columbia HCA was fined $ 1.7 billion for Medicare fraud. Scott has always claimed he never knew anything illegal was going on in his company while he was CEO. He resigned from the company now known as HCA Healthcare in 1997.
