A former Outcome Health analyst will not serve prison time for his role in a $1 billion fraud scheme at the high-profile Chicago company, a federal judge decided Tuesday.
U.S. District Judge Thomas Durkin sentenced Oliver Hahn to three years of probation and 200 hours of community service. Hahn had previously pleaded guilty to one count of felony conspiracy to commit wire fraud in 2020, as part of a plea deal.
The day before Han's sentencing, former senior analyst Katherine Choi was sentenced to the same sentence, having also previously pleaded guilty to a felony charge of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, as part of a plea deal.
On Wednesday, Hahn became the sixth person to be sentenced in the case of Outcome Health, once one of Chicago's most talked-about tech companies.
The company placed screens and tablets in doctors' offices and waiting rooms that displayed advertisements for drug companies. But government prosecutors alleged during the trial of three top Outcome executives last year that those executives lied about the number of monitors and tablets Outcome owned, then used those false numbers to overcharge drug companies for advertising. Prosecutors said Outcome inflated revenue figures that were used to raise money from investors and secure loans.
The jury found the three former executives guilty of fraud. Earlier this summer, co-founder and former CEO Rishi Shah was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison, co-founder and former president Shraddha Agarwal was sentenced to three years in a halfway house, and former CEO Brad Purdy was sentenced to three years. 27 months in prison.
In September, a fourth former CEO, Ashik Desai, who was Hahn's boss, was sentenced to seven months in prison. He pleaded guilty in 2019 to one count of wire fraud, as part of a plea deal with the government, and was the star witness who testified against his bosses during the trial.
Before his sentencing, Hahn wrote a letter to Durkin explaining that he trusted Desai and others. He wrote that he was only 24 years old when he started working, and expressed regret that he did not leave the job of his own volition when he realized what he was doing was wrong.
“In hindsight, I wish in those first days of my new job, I had truly realized that I had been manipulated…” Hahn wrote. “I think I was very naive at the time and couldn't fully understand the bigger picture, but I knew what I was doing wasn't right. The word 'fraud' wasn't on my mind at the time, but it should have been.” “.
He wrote that he stayed at the job because he worked hard to learn it, was good at it, thought it was a good company, his bosses seemed to care about him, and, at the time, he considered looking for a new job. And the prospect of being unemployed seemed daunting.
“Ultimately, none of these factors, not even combined, can justify my terrible decision to stay, but such were my circumstances at Outcome,” Hahn wrote.
The government also noted in its sentencing memorandum that Hahn cooperated during the investigation and did not benefit from the fraud scheme, other than receiving his salary.
Originally published: October 30, 2024 at 3:16 PM CST
