by Andrew Wolfson , @adwolfson –
The U.S. attorney’s office had decided it won’t prosecute Dr. David Dunn and two other former University of Louisville executives who were under investigation for allegedly misusing federal money for non-university purposes, their lawyers say.
The Courier-Journal reported in December 2015 that the FBI was investigating whether Dunn, executive vice president for health affairs; Dr. Russell Bessette, who worked under Dunn before leaving the university; and Priscilla Hancock, the university’s chief information officer, had spent federal money on their private company, Health DataStream.
The university placed Dunn and Hancock on paid leave a few days after the disclosure.
Background: U of L pays David Dunn $1.15M to go away
Lawyers for all three said Assistant U.S. Attorney Bryan Calhoun, who led the probe, informed them Wednesday that the government was declining prosecution and closing the case. Stephanie Collins, an office spokeswoman, said it would have no comment.
In an interview, Bessette’s lawyer, Scott C. Cox, said his client was relieved by the decision but always thought “it would turn out OK because he knew he hadn’t done anything wrong.”
Christy Moore, an attorney for Hancock, who retired last October, said she and her client were very pleased that a thorough investigation found “an absolute lack of any evidence of wrongdoing.” She said Hancock is a “loyal fan of the university” and has “no hard feelings” about the investigation, which was started by university police.
“We believe that if a university or any organization believes there is anything questionable in their house, they have to check it out,” she said.
Dunn’s Indianapolis attorney, Larry Mackey, was in Mexico but confirmed in an email that he also was told the government would not pursue a case against his client.
“No crime of any kind was ever committed by Dr. Dunn and so today’s announcement that the investigation is over was both predictable and the right decision,” Mackey said.
He previously said that Dunn provided the FBI and university police with a 200-page report documenting the “legitimate and transparent efforts he and others took to make U of L a leader in health care informatics, all of which was authorized in writing by the U of L office of the president.”
The inquiry concerned a company, also known as Know Your Colors, that Dunn and Bessette founded when they were colleagues at State University of New York in Buffalo. They later operated it out of U of L’s Abell Administration Center. Hancock worked closely with both of them at U of L and co-wrote a paper with Bessette.
