LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The executive director of a medical department at the University of Louisville wrote checks to himself from several medical practices linked to the school for amounts possibly exceeding $2 million over the last six years, an Internal Revenue Service criminal investigator said in an affidavit.
Perry “Chad” Vaughn, who oversees business affairs for the Department of Family & Geriatric Medicine and serves as a bookkeeper, cut at least 25 checks to himself for a total of $703,936 from the school and five affiliated practices in 2012 and 2013, IRS criminal investigator Robert Masterson said.
Masterson estimated that Vaughn, who worked at the school since 2002, may have taken more than $2 million for personal expenses by setting up bank accounts and moving money around over the last decade.
“The records of the Vaughn controlled account reveal that Vaughn paid his personal expenses, purchased homes & cars as well as transferred money to other accounts,” Masterson said.
Federal prosecutors obtained a temporary injunction on Aug. 30 stopping Vaughn from spending any funds in several accounts linked to his work at the university. A federal judge unsealed the complaint, injunction and Masterson’s affidavit Tuesday night.
The school fired Vaughn on Wednesday morning and is cooperating with a federal investigation, said Gary Mans, a spokesman for the university’s Health Science Center.
Emails sent Wednesday morning to Vaughn’s University of Louisville accounts were returned as undeliverable. Emails sent to a personal account listed in court documents drew no immediate response.
