The office of Tristram Coffin, U.S. Attorney for the District of Vermont, released additional details on Tuesday about a dispute over contracts between Dartmouth and the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in White River Junction, Vt., which "involved allegations of improper conduct by agents and employees of Dartmouth College" in six contracts, according to a press release. The College agreed to pay $275,000 to the federal government to settle the claims.
Dartmouth's conduct first fell under scrutiny in 2004 when the Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General audited six contracts and claimed to have discovered conflicts of interest, according to Tuesday's press release. The College subsequently returned a total of $604,000 in contract funds to the government, the release said.
Dartmouth executed five of the six contracts in 2003 and the sixth in 2005, according to the release. The executed contracts were "fixed price contracts" that provide the estimated costs of executing the contract, but which cannot be adjusted by the contracting party.
According to the settlement agreement released by Coffin, the contracts related to issues including patient safety, research and "rural ethics," which involve the special concerns of doctors practicing in rural settings. The contracts' full content has not been released.
"Discussing [the contracts] in specific detail is sort of hard," Coffin said in an interview with The Dartmouth, explaining that the contracts involve many VAMC employees.
The College allegedly violated the False Claims Act, or the "Lincoln Law," which allows non-government workers to file actions against federal contractors who allegedly commit claims frauds against the government, he said.
The federal government also contends the College violated a law prohibiting government employees from being compensated with private funds, according to the press release.
The settlement agreement says an agreement was reached "to avoid the delay, uncertainty, inconvenience, and expense of protracted litigation," and does not indicate wrongdoing on the part of the College.
In the future, Dartmouth will now require College employees working on federal grants and contracts to complete a survey identifying any potential conflicts of interest as part of the settlement, according to the document. A copy of the survey was included with the settlement agreement.
Parties familiar with the settlement agreement, including Coffin, declined to confirm or deny whether the settlement is related to the case of William Weeks, a Dartmouth professor of psychiatry who worked at the VAMC. Weeks was charged in May 2009 with a federal misdemeanor alleging a conflict of interest regarding contracts drafted between the Department of Veterans Affairs and the College. He was acquitted this April.
"Our legal counsel is telling us that [the settlement] is an issue that we can't comment on," VA public affairs officer Andrew Lacasse said. "As you know, Dr. Weeks was acquitted of the criminal charges, but there's a civil case still pending. We quite frankly cannot say anything."
Although both the recent civil settlement and Weeks' criminal charges involve conflict of interest concerns in the drafting of contracts, Lacasse neither confirmed nor denied a connection between Weeks and the settlement.
"[The only information] we ended up seeing today was just about the settlement and nothing about the actual civil case that will be brought against Dr. Weeks," he said.
Coffin declined to comment on the relation between the settlement and the criminal case against Weeks.
