UMC employee says contractor was eyes, ears for hospital chief

Greg Boone was brought to University Medical Center to help the information technology department.

But he ended up being a spy for then-hospital chief Lacy Thomas, a hospital executive testified Wednesday.

"He walked around being the eyes and ears of Lacy," said Ernie McKinley, the hospital's chief information officer, on the sixth day of testimony in Thomas' trial.

Thomas told McKinley that was Boone's role because people were more comfortable talking to him than to Thomas, McKinley testified.

At the time, Boone was earning $155 an hour under his company's contract with the hospital, he said.

"He wasn't doing anything except walking around the hospital," McKinley told the jury.

Thomas faces charges of theft and misconduct by a public officer stemming from contracts UMC awarded to Boone's company, Frasier Systems, and four other companies during his three-year tenure running the county's only public hospital.

Prosecutors contend that Thomas wanted to enrich friends and associates from Chicago with contracts that were unnecessary or duplicated services.

Thomas' lawyer, Dan Albregts, says his client brought in his Chicago contacts because he had worked with them at a large county hospital there and trusted they could help solve the major problems at UMC.

McKinley, who was information systems director during Thomas' tenure, said he had problems with two of the consultants Thomas brought in from Chicago. One was Martello Pollock with Crystal Communications, which received three contracts totaling more than $170,000 involving the hospital's phone system.

McKinley recalled meeting Pollock on his visit to the hospital to conduct a quick assessment of the system. He left after a couple of hours and produced a four-page report that included errors and a chart that was three years out of date, McKinley testified.

McKinley told his boss that he didn't want Pollock around.

"He was going to be a waste of my time," McKinley said.

Pollock was later hired to help with the phone system in the hospital's Northeast Tower, which was under construction. But Pollock didn't have any experience with voice-over Internet protocol technologies that were being installed at the new tower, he said.

"He didn't help us do anything at the Northeast Tower," McKinley said.

McKinley said he had similar concerns about Boone when it came to implementing a project manager's office in the information technology department.

UMC paid Boone's Frasier Systems more than $800,000 over three contracts, but the only reports he produced were regurgitations of what McKinley and other staffers had told him, McKinley said.

"There was nothing he could do or offer that we weren't already doing," he said. "I thought it was just ... throwing money away."

Contact reporter Brian Haynes at bhaynes@review journal.com or 702-383-0281.