Credit card statements obtained by FOX 8 News investigators show that a former hospital administrator at Chalmette, La.-based St. Bernard Parish Hospital allegedly spent more than $3,000 at restaurants in the area using hospital funds, according to FOX 8 KSLA.
A grand jury convened on Sept. 14 at the request of the district attorney.
According to the article, credit card records from 2012 show that former hospital administrator Wayne Landry visited a New Orleans steakhouse roughly 10 times during a period of four months, totaling $2,000. Mr. Landry allegedly paid the bill each time with public hospital funds.
In those four months, Mr. Landry allegedly spent roughly $3,150 at restaurants in the area, according to the article.
Mr. Landry told FOX 8 that he did take physicians to dinner in an effort to recruit them to join the hospital staff, but that he used his own funds instead of the hospital's.
"I spent about ten or fifteen thousand of my own money taking physicians to dinner to recruit them, and if I've spent…ten thousand of the hospital's money taking doctors to recruit to a dinner or to have a Christmas event [in those four years], that's a problem," said Mr. Landry. "I have difficulty comprehending that, because obviously I wouldn't do those things for the benefit of a meal or some kind of event gathering."
The grand jury has yet to issue a decision on the matter.