POKIN AROUND: Stealing from Shriners Hospital: the man deemed the 'lowest of the low"?
During a four-year period, O'Fallon resident Robert S. Brodzin stole $828,000 intended for children severely burned, disfigured with cleft palates, disabled by spinal chord injuries.
Brodzin, 41, was in the trusted position of director of fiscal services for Shriners Hospitals for Children-St. Louis, a job he'd held since 2000.In a rather simple scheme, he set up bogus companies and gave himself an unauthorized Shriners credit card.
He used his ill-gotten funds to live large. He bought two Hummers and a Corvette; purchased a $195,000 condo overlooking the 8th tee on Isla Del Sol, St. Petersburg; took Las Vegas vacations; lavished himself with golf and health-club memberships; and was there, with season tickets, to cheer our St. Louis pro teams.
Hanaway on Thursday told me she's seen a lot of criminal conduct in her three years on the job.
"Is he worse then Michael Devlin? No," she says. "But in terms of white-collar crime, this is very bad. This is as bad as it gets.
I called Brodzin Wednesday and left a message. I drove to the federally subsidized apartment complex in O'Fallon where he now lives. (A single resident cannot have an income of more than $27,660.)
Ultimately, I was unable to talk to the man deemed "the lowest of the low."
He is expected to receive justice when sentenced Nov. 7 in federal court in St. Louis. He pleaded guilty Aug. 21.
Brodzin faces up to 20 years in prison. But if U.S. District Judge Catherine D. Perry follows the plea agreement, as judges often do, he is likely to be sent away for two to four years. In addition, he has agreed to pay back the money.
There's a "For Sale" sign in the front yard of the home he and his wife bought in March 2006 on Middlesburg Drive in O'Fallon's Monticello subdivision. They have two children.
Former neighbor Scott Bowles, 37, described Brodzin as a "nice, quiet guy. He'd help you out if you needed help."
The way Bowles sees it, Brodzin is not alone in succumbing to temptation.
"There's a history of this with people who work with a lot of money," he says. "I think it's something that can get the best of us."
Joel Schwartz, Brodzin's attorney, says it's unfair to declare one white-collar criminal the "lowest of the low" because, in this case, as in most, the loss is covered by insurance.
Schwartz made it clear he's not justifying his client's bad acts.
Brodzin "deeply regrets what he did," Schwartz says. "He acknowledges that his conduct was wrong, and he has a tremendous amount of remorse. He's a guy who got in over his head and made some horrible choices."
I ask: Over his head in what?
In business, Schwartz says. He estimates only 15 to 20 percent of the purloined funds went to luxury items.
"Basically, he used the money to keep the two businesses afloat," Schwartz says.
Brodzin owns two Tan Destiny salons in St. Peters: one at the Dierbergs 79 Crossing shopping center and the other at the 94 Crossing shopping center at Mid Rivers Mall Drive and Highway N.
On Wednesday evening both salons had the same message - "Closed Until Further Notice" - taped to the front door, along with a more permanent inducement: "Ask About Our Infrared Body Wrap."
Back to the matter of insurance. Hanaway wants to make a point: "Insurance premiums cost money."
And as a columnist, I'd like to make a point or two.
If Brodzin was in financial trouble, he never filed for bankruptcy protection.
Second, according to court records, the only lawsuits against him were filed a year ago for being behind in his rent at the tanning salons. He owed $23,789.
Third: Shriners would have been out $820,000, and a whole lot more - with or without insurance - if Brodzin had never been caught.
So, after four years of stealing, exactly how did he get nabbed?
In February he went on vacation. And a bill came in the mail to Brodzin, at Shriners. It was for Brodzin's unauthorized credit card. (Brodzin had been told to acquire two such cards for others at Shriners. He decided on his own to make it three.)
Another employee opened the bill and noticed Brodzin bought airline tickets for locations with no apparent connection to Shriners business, which is no small feat. Shriners has 22 hospitals in the United States, Canada and Mexico. The fraternal organization and hospitals form the nation's wealthiest charity.
I asked Tammy Robbins, spokeswoman for Shriners, what the loss of $828,000 meant to the hospital. How many operations would that have covered? How many children could have been helped?
No patient lost services, she says. No patient was turned away. And there was no financial impact on plans to build a new hospital at the Washington University Medical Center Campus, she says.
She would not disclose Brodzin's salary. She would not respond when I asked if the hospital, overall, was lax in its financial accountability.
What she did say was that hospital officials might have more to say once Brodzin is sentenced.
I couldn't help but think it must be nice not to miss $828,000.
In a prepared statement, hospital Administrator John O'Shaughnessy said, "It is unfortunate that one individual behaved in a way that is entirely contrary to the core values that our 6,000 employees nationally, and 300 locally, believe in and live every day."
As part of his scheme, Brodzin created on paper three businesses that he then established as qualified hospital vendors. Next, he sent invoices to Shriners for nonexistent goods and services. He then prepared checks for payment, submitting them to his supervisors. The checks were never for more than $20,000, which would have drawn closer review.
The bogus vendors were West County Orthopedic Supply, West County Surgical Supply and BEI Systems Inc.
It took me five minutes on the Secretary of State's Web site to discover BEI Systems stood for Brodzin Enterprises Inc., West County Orthopaedic Supply was owned by Brodzin Enterprises and Cheyco Inc. owned the third bogus company and had a registered agent by the name of Robert S. Brodzin.
The bogus companies used the business addresses of Brodzin's tanning salons.
"Obviously, whoever was signing the checks he had prepared was not performing due diligence," Hanaway told me.
Would you be surprised that the New York Times reported in July that individual Shriners elsewhere in the nation have stepped forward with concerns about the commingling of charitable and non-charitable assets and the disappearance of money raised for hospitals?
But don't worry. As part of his plea agreement, Brodzin has promised to show his former employer how to tighten the books.
How charitable.
