Heidi Facchini, RN, the first person the surgeons at North Fullerton Surgery Center in Montclair, N.J, hired when they built their 1-OR facility back in 2002, was the last person you'd think would betray them. But the 43-year-old married mother of 2 pleaded guilty last week to stealing what some say is more than $900,000 from the ASC through misuse of company credit cards and thefts from company bank accounts.

In the end, it wasn't the stolen jewelry or the vacations or the cash that did her in. It was the diabetic drugs she purchased for her son on the surgery center's credit card that tripped her up.

From January 2005 until she left the center last February, Ms. Facchini ordered diabetic drugs for her son and charged an assortment of items to the company American Express card: furniture for her husband's office from Staples, maid service, food, clothes, Rolex watches and trips, according to court records and a source close to the situation. Ms. Facchini carefully disguised the unauthorized purchases she made on the company credit card as payments to vendors for surgical supplies on the center's accounting software, says the source. She also admitted to embezzling $516,000 over the 4-year period, according to the source, duplicating American Express payments on the company's QuickBooks ledger to conceal wire transfers she made from the center's checking account to her personal bank account.

"The reconciliation was perfect," says the source, who spoke to us on the condition of anonymity. "Not a check was out of place. Not a number was out of place."

The theft was discovered when Ms. Facchini left the center last year to work for Florham Park (N.J.) Surgery Center, which dashed off a prepared statement saying they "were absolutely blindsided shocked and dismayed by Ms. Facchini's guilty plea." Physicians at North Fullerton Surgery Center first became suspicious when an accountant reviewing the center's finances questioned $30,000 worth of non-formulary diabetic medication that had been delivered to the surgery center over a 4-year period.

"Alarms went off when we saw that," says the source. "Insulin, headache drugs — that was the tipping point."

Further digging found that the center was paying an exorbitant amount for such supplies as implants and gauze pads. The cooked books showed that the ASC was paying as much as 30% on supplies, a figure that's now in the 15% to 18% range, says the source.

Ms. Facchini, who didn't return our e-mailed requests for comment, waived her right to a trial and pleaded guilty to 1 count of theft by deception and 1 count of filing false and fraudulent state income tax return. Under the terms of the plea bargain, she may receive probation when she's sentenced in March, meaning Ms. Facchini may not spend a day behind bars, according to details of the plea agreement.

Montclair Surgery Center's attorney, Dan Giaquinto of Kern, Augustine, Conroy & Schoppmann, says, "These types of thefts within a place of business are precipitated by trust that's put in one person. The fact that it was uncovered and we're going to have some justice in this case is due to the perseverance of the medical director and his staff."

Rich Slavia, CFO of North Fullerton Surgery Center, says "these types of crimes are typically committed in small to mid-size companies where a key employee is entrusted with certain critical financial responsibilities and can hide their wrongdoing for many years."

Dan O'Connor

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Pictured: Heidi Facchini, RN