ARKANSAS
The owner of two Arkansas mental health companies that provide inpatient and outpatient mental health services to juveniles was found guilty Wednesdayyesterday of engaging in a scheme to bribe a former deputy director of the Arkansas Department of Human Services, according to officials.
Theodore “Ted” E. Suhl, 50, of Warm Springs, Arkansas, was convicted by a federal jury of two counts of honest services fraud, one count of federal funds bribery and one count of interstate travel in aid of bribery.
The evidence presented at trial showed that Suhl bribed former deputy director of Human Services, Steven B. Jones, using intermediaries Phillip W. Carter and a local pastor.
Trial evidence indicated that beginning in approximately April 2007, Suhl, Jones and Carter periodically met at restaurants in Memphis, Tennessee, or in rural Arkansas in order for Suhl to request help for his companies from Jones who was in his capacity as deputy director of Human Services.
Jones agreed to perform official acts that benefitted Suhl and Suhl’s businesses and provided internal ADHS information to Suhl, according to evidence presented at trial.
The trial evidence also showed that, in exchange for Jones’s agreement to perform official acts, Suhl paid Jones by funneling cash payments through the pastor’s church and providing the bribe payments to Jones in cash so that the transactions would not be easily traceable.
Jones plead guilty to federal-funds bribery and conspiracy for his involvement in the scheme and was sentenced to 30 months in prison. Carter pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit federal funds bribery and honest services wire fraud and was sentenced to 24 months in prison.
The Arkansas Times reported that the Suhl investigation has been publicly known for more than a year.
The newspaper report stated that in November 2014 that a federal judge had refused Suhl’s effort to keep receiving money from the state for inpatient and outpatient mental health treatment for young people at his Trinity Behavioral Health Care, formerly known as the Lord’s Ranch in Randolph County, and outpatient care provided at multiple locations by Maxus, according to the Times.
The FBI’s Little Rock Field Office investigated the case.