Syracuse, NY -- Had former Syracuse hospital boss Sergio Garcia inflated his resume in the private sector, he’d likely be fired and move on.
But Garcia is accused of lying about his credentials to get a job at the state taxpayer-funded Upstate Medical University. That means, according to a new indictment, he committed two felonies: defrauding the government and lying on an official document.
Garcia made roughly $400,000 in salary from the hospital in his 15-month employment in 2017 and 2018. Prosecutors now say that taxpayer money was obtained by lying on his resume.
Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick acknowledged that Garcia’s employment at a government-owned hospital gave his office an avenue to prosecute that wouldn’t be there had the falsehoods occurred at a private institution.
The indictment accuses Garcia of intending to “defraud the state, or any political subdivision, or public authority of the state” by filing the inflated resume in the “public records” of the state university system.
Garcia’s arraignment on the indictment hasn’t yet been scheduled. He has remained free as the case plays out.
The DA first had Garcia arrested on the charges in March 2019. But the case remained at a standstill for nearly a year as Garcia’s lawyer, Joseph Bergh, negotiated the case behind the scenes.
After all, Garcia’s resume also included other impressive accomplishments that were true, including stints at other health care institutions, including the St. Lawrence Health System in Potsdam and the Northeast Ohio Medical University in Rootstown, Ohio. Could he have earned the Upstate job on his own merits, aside from the allegations in the indictment?
As negotiations dragged on, prosecutor Melanie Carden decided to indict the case last week. That means that -- absent a court-approved reduction in the charge -- Garcia will either be required to plead guilty to a felony or go to trial.
Both defrauding the government and offering a false instrument for filing are the weakest forms of felony, punishable by up to a short prison sentence but not requiring any time behind bars.
Garcia was Chief of Staff for former University president Danielle Laraque-Arena from March 2017 to June 21, 2018. Garcia was in charge of Laraque-Arena’s office and Upstate’s offices of external relations, human resources, facilities and planning, and university police. He left the University in 2018 after making later-debunked claims about his work for the U.S. Department of State.
But the DA’s office claims that Garcia’s deception ran far deeper. According to Fitzpatrick’s account at the time of Garcia’s arrest, the former Upstate official is accused of:
- Fabricating a bachelor’s degree from a university in Mexico: In applying for Upstate’s chief of staff in 2016, Garcia claimed he had a bachelor’s degree from the Universidad de las Americas in Puebla, Mexico. In fact, Garcia never graduated from the university because he didn’t complete an apprenticeship program, Fitzpatrick has said. Garcia has not graduated from any known university, the DA said at the time.
- Falsely claiming that he was previously “chief of staff” for the U.S. Department of State: On his Upstate application, Garcia said that he served as Chief of Staff for the U.S. Department of State, and that he “advised front office leadership” and aided the “Secretary of State.” Garcia’s resume indicated that he was chief of staff for the entire U.S. Department of State, as he didn’t qualify it in any way, Carden has noted. In fact, Garcia’s titles at the state department were foreign affairs officer (in 2004 and 2005) and senior adviser (in 2006), the DA’s office said.
After being hired in January 2017 as a vice president and chief of staff, Garcia continued to spread the falsehoods he initially stated in his application, fabricating additional details regarding his educational background and his responsibilities and experience with the State Department, the DA’s office said.
Garcia resigned in May 2018. At the time, news accounts linked his departure to much-publicized fabrications from 2017 about surviving a car bombing in Afghanistan while with the state department.
Among Garcia’s fabrications uncovered by the Albany Times-Union at the time were:
- Narrowly escaping a bombing in Afghanistan in 2013 that killed 25-year-old foreign service worker Anne Smedinghoff;
- Being hired by former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell to work in the State Department;
- Being a close friend of former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice;
- Being in the White House when the 9/11 terrorist attacks occurred for seven days without shaving or showering;
- Getting a law degree from an unidentified university in Oklahoma and working for a Los Angles law firm.
Garcia’s arrest came as part of the DA’s multi-year probe of Upstate Medical University. And he’s not the only one investigating the hospital.
Ex-president David Smith pleaded guilty in 2018 to a pay-padding scheme that also ensnared another longtime official, Steven Brady. Those cases were brought by the state Attorney General’s Office.
The university was also scrutinized for a $660,500 hush payment to another former CEO, Dr. John McCabe.
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Ex-Upstate official indicted in $400K fraud case; not what you’d expect - syracuse.com
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