Cops: Thomas’ wife key in scheme

Tony Cook and Marshall Allen

Friday, Sept. 7, 2007 | 7:27 a.m.

When former University Medical Center boss Lacy Thomas needed to reel in kickbacks from his Chicago cronies , he allegedly fell back on a familiar scheme.

Thomas has been under criminal investigation for allegedly directing no-work contracts worth millions of dollars from the cash-strapped county hospital to his friends in Chicago. His payback, according to sources close to the investigation, came in the form of no-work contracts from Chicago to Las Vegas - directed to his wife.

Because of that and other alleged improprieties, Metro Police on Thursday recommended that the Clark County district attorney's office prosecute Thomas and two Chicago businessmen who benefited from the contracts.

Lacy Thomas had been at UMC for about 18 months when he and his wife, Henrene Thomas, flew to Aruba on March 3, 2005, at the expense of Chicago lobbyist Orlando Jones, according to sources familiar with the investigation.

The couple returned to Las Vegas 10 days later and Henrene Thomas opened a bank account the next day in the name of HT LLC, sources said.

She never formed any corporation, sources said, but the account allegedly became the drop point for at least 11 kickbacks for county contracts that Lacy Thomas awarded to his Chicago friends.

Jones is an influential player in Chicago politics, the godson of former Cook County Board of Commissioners President John Stroger, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

Sources said at least one of the alleged kickbacks came from a contract awarded to Henrene Thomas by one of Jones' clients, Family Guidance Centers Inc., a drug rehabilitation clinic in Chicago.

Under that contract, Henrene Thomas was supposed to open a clinic in Las Vegas, sources said. The money ended up in Henrene Thomas' account, but the clinic never opened, and it in fact was never intended to open, sources said.

A 60-page document that Metro Police submitted to the district attorney's office Thursday recommended prosecution of Lacy Thomas, Jones and Martello Pollock, owner of Crystal Communications, a company that received a $132,780 contract from UMC.

Crystal Communications, which shares a Chicago Loop office with Jones' company, was hired to evaluate UMC's telephone system, according to a police affidavit filed in January. Hospital executives told police that the work was never completed.

The request submitted to the district attorney also alleges that Thomas helped steer $5,000 to Premier Alliance, a subsidiary of Orlando Jones & Associates.

Jones, reached by telephone Thursday, said he had nothing to do with any criminal activity and that police had never contacted him.

Detectives recommended dozens of criminal counts be filed against the three men for bribery, fraudulent appropriation of public property and theft. Thomas is named in 19 recommended counts.

Sources said the police investigation is ongoing and the number of criminal counts could triple in the coming weeks.

District Attorney David Roger could file charges, dismiss the case, send it back to police for more investigation or forward it to a grand jury.

Thomas' Chicago roots run deep. He attended Chicago State University and later served a stint as chief financial officer of the largest community college district in Illinois. In 1999 he became director of Chicago's Stroger Hospital, formerly known as Cook County Hospital.

When he came to Las Vegas in 2003 he was supposed to rescue UMC, which was staggering from financial losses. Clark County officials praised his qualifications at the time.

But in 2006 Thomas stopped providing Clark County commissioners with monthly reports on the hospital's finances. He told commissioners in November that UMC lost more than $18 million in the prior fiscal year, but an independent audit revealed in January that UMC was more than $34 million in the red.

The same day that the audit was released, County Manager Virginia Valentine fired Thomas and Metro Police raided the hospital looking for evidence regarding illegal contracts.