Ex-supervisors at UMC charged

Two former University Medical Center supervisors, including an administrator, have been charged with taking hospital property and using hospital employees for personal work.

Thomas Hutchison, the acting director of the facilities department before resigning last year, faces the bulk of the allegations, which arose during the unrelated Las Vegas police investigation into wrongdoing by top hospital administrators.

Hutchison faces 13 charges, including theft and grand larceny. Former support services associate administrator Christopher Roth, who also resigned last year, was charged with three counts of theft.

Two hospital employees, Sime Perkov and Peter Panagos, were charged with doing work for Hutchison and Roth while on hospital time.

Roth's lawyer, John Spilotro, said the case against his client was influenced by political pressure related to the larger investigation of the county-owned hospital.

"We're defending it wholeheartedly," Spilotro said. "They're definitely out to lunch on a whole lot of things."

Lawyers for Hutchison and Perkov did not return phone calls for comment Wednesday. It was unclear whether Panagos had a lawyer. The four defendants face a Dec. 18 preliminary hearing in Las Vegas Justice Court.

"These allegations are reprehensible," Clark County spokesman Dan Kulin said in a statement. "It is simply intolerable and would represent a serious violation of the public trust."

According to a police report, the thefts began in early 2004 and continued through early this year.

Hutchison took a $399 designer toilet, an $8,000 air compressor and epoxy paint that belonged to the hospital, and he also had a hospital carpenter work on custom cabinets and Corian counter tops for his Henderson home while on UMC time, the report said.

Hutchison told investigators he borrowed the air compressor for more than a year, but a log showed he never signed it out, the report said.

On several occasions Hutchison returned cabinet knobs and a patio heater to Lowe's after they were purchased by UMC, the report said. The returns netted Hutchison more than $1,000, which he put on gift cards for personal use, the report said.

Investigators said Hutchison also told hospital employees to make signs on hospital equipment for Roth's businesses, including an air conditioning repair school called Air Conditioning Technical Institute, the report said.

Roth and Hutchison were charged with conspiring to have the signs made.

Roth was charged with taking six or seven condensing and evaporating units from UMC and installing them at his school. He was also charged with having Perkov and Panagos install them.

Authorities also charged Roth with taking two patio heaters from UMC and using them at his house.

Since the investigation, the hospital has tightened access to storage areas and materials. It has also installed surveillance cameras in the stockroom, Kulin said.

The hospital has been conducting an internal investigation that could bring more changes, he said.

Contact reporter Brian Haynes at bhaynes@reviewjournal.com or (702) 383-0281.