10/08/2024 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 10/09/2024 20:55
Date: Oct. 8, 2024
Contact: [email protected]
Richmond, VA - A Providence Forge man pled guilty today to embezzling funds from his former employer, the Virginia Birth-Related Neurological Injury Compensation Program (Birth-Injury Program).
According to court documents, John Hunter Raines was the chief financial officer and deputy director of the Birth-Injury Program. The Birth-Injury Program pays monetary compensation to families of infants who suffer from brain or spinal cord injuries resulting from the birth process that render the infant developmentally and/or cognitively disabled. Raines' role required that he oversee the finances of the Birth-Injury Program, including approximately $650 million in investments in 2023.
From at least January 2022 through October 2023, Raines stole over $4.8 million from the Birth-Injury Program, including by using his access to the Birth-Injury Program bank account to initiate at least 59 separate wire transactions, sending funds to bank accounts in Raines' own name. Raines also used the Birth-Injury Program debit card for personal gain. Raines spent embezzled Birth-Injury Program money on various personal expenses. For example:
As a financial control on the Birth-Injury Program, Virginia Code § 38.2-5015(B) required an independent certified public accountant selected by the Birth-Injury Program's board of directors to complete an audit of the program's accounts each fiscal year. Raines deliberately impeded the statutorily mandated audit process by failing to timely provide the Birth-Injury Program's files to auditors when requested. Due at least in part to Raines' obstructive conduct, the Birth-Injury Program's statutorily mandated audits continue to be delayed by over three years.
Raines pled guilty to mail fraud and money laundering offenses. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Feb. 27, 2025, and faces a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison. Actual sentences for federal crimes are typically less than the maximum penalties. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.
Jessica D. Aber, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia; Kareem A. Carter, Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) Special Agent in Charge of the Washington D.C. Field Office; Damon E. Wood, Inspector in Charge of the Washington Division of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service; and Michael C. Westfall, State Inspector General for the Commonwealth of Virginia, made the announcement after Senior U.S. District Judge John A. Gibney Jr. accepted the plea.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Avi Panth and Kashan K. Pathan are prosecuting the case.
IRS-CI is the criminal investigative arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money-laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. IRS-CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a more than a 90 percent federal conviction rate. The agency has 20 field offices located across the U.S. and 12 attaché posts abroad.