Forest Park Bookkeeper Sentenced to Probation

The keeper of the bribery books at Forest Park Medical Center was sentenced Wednesday to five years’ probation.

Andrea Kay Smith tearfully accepted the sentence handed down by U.S. District Judge Jack Zouhary, who presided earlier this year over the trial of nine defendants in the Forest Park case, one of the largest, most far-reaching medical fraud trials in history.

The five-year probationary sentence, together with a $27,855 fine, was in keeping with recommendations from the U.S. attorney’s office.

Smith, a former assistant to Forest Park executive Alan Beauchamp, testified at trial for the government under a plea agreement she entered into in February 2017. She said her job at the physician-owned surgical hospital in North Dallas was to track on a monthly basis the number of surgeries performed or referred each month by doctors who, according to federal investigators, were being paid to send business to Forest Park. Seven defendants, including four physicians, were found guilty by a jury this spring of taking part in Forest Park’s surgeries-for-cash scheme.

Smith’s sentencing hearing was the first since the conclusion of the federal trial last spring. 

The sentencing of convicted defendants, as well as other Forest Park employees and associates who testified under plea agreements, is expected to take place in early 2020.

Smith, the daughter of a bookkeeper and a Baptist minister, testified that she tracked for Beauchamp the number of cases that various doctors sent to Forest Park each month. Beauchamp, another government witness, testified that he relied on Smith’s monthly reports to determine whether doctors he was bribing to ship business Forest Park’s way were living up to their illicit agreements with him.

On Wednesday, Smith told Zouhary that in tracking surgeons’ monthly referrals to Forest Park, she was merely doing what her boss, Beauchamp, told her to to do.

“I pride myself on doing things right,” she said, adding, “I thought I was doing my job well.” 

Eventually, she said, she realized that “what Alan was doing was illegal” –that is, that Forest Park was bribing doctors to send surgery patients to Forest Park.

Zouhary noted that Smith’s trial testimony was useful to the government in its case against those at the heart of Forest Park’s bribery scheme.

“I have no doubt that you’re a good person,” the judge said. He noted that Smith did not benefit monetarily from Forest Park’s bribes to surgeons.

Smith said she hopes to join a Christian ministry that reaches out to prison inmates as soon as the terms of her probation permit her to do so.

Zouhary said Smith’s involvement in the Forest Park criminal case will give her a unique perspective, should she pursue such a ministry.

“I wish you well,” the judge said.