A former senior analyst at Outcome Health will avoid prison time after a federal judge sentenced her Tuesday to three years of probation and 200 hours of community service for her role in what prosecutors have called a $1 billion fraud scheme at the once successful Chicago company.
Kathryn Choi is the fifth former Outcome employee or leader to be sentenced in recent months. Choi pleaded guilty in 2020 to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud as part of a plea deal, and she cooperated with the government’s investigation into Outcome executives.
The U.S. Probation Office and Choi had asked that she be sentenced only to probation.
At the end of that trial, a jury found those three executives guilty of fraud. This summer, former Outcome co-founder and CEO Rishi Shah was sentenced to 7 ½ years in prison, former co-founder and president Shradha Agarwal was sentenced to three years of confinement in a halfway house, and former chief operating officer and chief financial Brad Purdy was sentenced to 27 months in prison.
In September, a fourth former executive, Ashik Desai, was sentenced to seven months in prison. Desai took a plea deal with the government early on and testified against his bosses during the trial.
Desai was Choi’s boss, and Choi fabricated inventory and production numbers under Desai’s direction, the government wrote in its sentencing memo. The government noted in that memo that other Outcome employees resigned when they learned about the fraud, but Choi remained in her job and “acquiesced to her role in the scheme because she valued her employment with Outcome and the career and financial opportunities it presented, and likely due to her trust in and deference to others in the company.”
The government also said, however, that she had no contact with the higher-level participants in the fraud scheme and did not benefit financially beyond her salary.
According to the memo, Choi has since “done everything right, and everything possible to make things right,” including cooperating with the government’s investigation, accepting responsibility for her conduct, rebuilding her career and learning lessons from her mistakes.
A second former analyst, Oliver Han, who also previously pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, is scheduled to be sentenced Wednesday.
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