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November 20, 2020

Chicago Businessman Charged With Swindling Hospitals in Connection With Attempted Purchase of $2.6 Million in PPE

The president of Illinois-based At Diagnostics Inc., has been charged with fraud for allegedly swindling more than $2.6 million from hospitals who paid for scarce personal protective equipment (PPE) amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Dennis W. Haggerty, Jr. and two business partners formed At Diagnostics in March 2020, to sell PPE.  Two large university hospitals in the Midwest ordered a combined one million N95 face masks from the company. The hospitals paid more than $3 million as a deposit into a bank account that Haggerty represented as an At Diagnostics account but which was actually solely controlled by Haggerty. The complaint alleges that Haggerty spent part of the hospitals’ funds for his own personal benefit, including purchasing two Maserati automobiles and a Land Rover sport-utility vehicle. When At Diagnostics failed to deliver the masks on time, Haggerty allegedly falsely claimed to one hospital that his bank had no record of the payment being received, and altered a bank statement to make it appear as if the funds had never been received. To date, Haggerty has failed to return more than $2.6 million paid by the hospitals for masks that were never delivered.