Fired UCLA Official Given 33 Months in Fraud Scheme

The former administrator of UCLA’s radiological services department has been sentenced to 33 months in federal prison and ordered to pay $300,000 in restitution.

James Campbell, 46, pleaded guilty in September to embezzling more than $500,000 from UCLA over the course of four years. Assistant U.S. Atty. Nathan J. Hochman said the sentence, handed down Thursday, “sends a strong deterrent message that justice will be swift and the punishment severe” for those who try to defraud public institutions.

Campbell’s attorney, Deputy Federal Public Defender Mary Kelly, said U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson’s sentence was too harsh. “It really seems that he’s being treated as a scapegoat by UCLA,” said Kelly, who noted that several people were implicated in the scam.

A federal grand jury indicted Campbell last year on 59 counts, including conspiracy, fraud and money laundering. The investigation leading to the indictments took two years and involved agents from the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Office of the Inspector General and the FBI.

Between 1990 and 1994, Campbell established two employment agencies--Radiology Registry Agency and 21st Services Corp. The agencies provided temporary help to the radiological services department, which does X-rays, bone scans and magnetic resonance imaging for the UCLA Medical Center and--under a federal contract--for the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in West Los Angeles.

Campbell was accused of hiding his ties with the two agencies from UCLA, overbilling and rubber-stamping phony invoices--subsequently approved by the former chief financial officer of UCLA’s radiology department, Benny Chow. While Chow approved the fraudulent invoices, he received monthly checks of $500 for three years, Hochman said. Chow, 41, of West Hills, pleaded guilty in September to five misdemeanor counts involving the theft of federal funds in the scheme.

A two-year internal audit found that through one of the agencies, the university hired a 13-year-old who was listed as a $26-an-hour radiological technical assistant. The audit also turned up an invoice that sought $295,636 for services rendered by Campbell’s brother, Bruce, and listed him as a physician. Bruce Campbell, a dentist, real estate agent and general contractor, did no work for the radiology department and was not licensed to practice medicine in California, Hochman said. Auditors discovered that he had supervised a 2,000-square-foot extension on James Campbell’s Lakewood residence. Bruce Campbell pleaded guilty to mail fraud.

James Campbell, who was fired from UCLA in 1994, is scheduled to begin serving his sentence in March.