Ex-Bear Stearns executive re-indicted in finance case

Former Bear Stearns Cos. executive P. Nicholas Hurtgen was indicted for taking part in a hospital financing kickback scheme, nine months after similar charges against him were thrown out.

Chicago U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald announced the new indictment against Hurtgen today. A grand jury accused the 44-year-old Glencoe, Illinois, resident of conspiring with two other men to force the hiring of a politically connected construction firm.

``The indictment alleges that Hurtgen sought to obtain financial gain for Bear Stearns and himself,'' by working with a state health board member taking kickbacks from the construction firm to ensure its hiring by a hospital needing board approval for new building projects, Fitzgerald said in a statement.

The board member, Stuart Levine, was accused of obtaining at least $9.5 million in kickbacks for himself and his associates. Levine, 61, who served on the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board, pleaded guilty to fraud charges last year. Construction company owner Jacob Kiferbaum, 55, pleaded guilty in 2005. Neither has been sentenced.

U.S. District Judge John Grady threw out the case against Hurtgen in March, ruling that prosecutors failed to show he knew of the payments made by Kiferbaum to Levine.

``We believe we have now added those factual allegations,'' Fitzgerald said today at a press conference. ``It still then becomes an allegation we have to prove,'' he added.

Defense attorney Ronald Safer of Chicago's Schiff Hardin law firm won dismissal of the case against Hurtgen. In a phone interview, he said he planned to ask Grady to throw out the case again.

``I do not believe the new indictment cures the defects in the original indictment, mainly because the facts do not support a charge against Nick,'' Safer said.

Hurtgen, who Fitzgerald's press release described as a senior managing director of Bear Stearns's Chicago office, arranged financing for some of the hospital expansion projects approved by the board upon which Levine served.

``Bear Stearns requires its employees to act in accordance with the high ethical standards the firm has set for itself,'' spokeswoman Elizabeth Ventura said in an e-mailed statement.

``We have taken this investigation seriously from the onset and have shared documents and the results of our internal interviews with the relevant authorities and continue to cooperate with their efforts,'' she said.