PEKIN, Ill. — The latest filing in a Tazewell County lawsuit involving Reditus Labs CEO Aaron Rossi now includes accusations that he stole money from a former employer in Bloomington years ago, revealing details behind federal tax fraud charges against him.
According to The Pantagraph, Bloomington surgeon Dr. Larry Nord, who operated Central Illinois Orthopedic Surgery with Dr. Brett Keller, spoke April 1 in a deposition to several attorneys involved in lawsuits against Rossi, saying he hired Rossi in 2011 to assist with office and computer work.
Nord, who went to medical school with Rossi’s father, Larry Rossi, said Aaron Rossi was not offered a medical residency with CIOS because he learned Rossi had not passed the U.S. Medical Licensing Exam after attending Saint Eustatius Medical School in Barbados.
Rossi reportedly took control of CIOS’ business operations in 2013 after Nord turned the majority of the company over to Keller.
Nord said payments for physician services were sent through wire transfers or the mail into the business account, but were not credited to the patient’s bill.
That left excessive amounts of miscellaneous income in the checking account, for which, “We believe that’s where Aaron had access in writing out large bonus checks and salary checks without our consent,” Nord added.
Nord’s deposition was attached in court documents submitted Monday in a lawsuit filed in 2020 by Rossi against former business partner Dr. Malcolm Herzog. Rossi is a plaintiff and a counter-defendant in the suit. That case has been consolidated with another filed by Rossi’s former business partner Dr. James Davie.
Monday’s filing was Herzog’s response to Pekin-based PAL Health Technologies’ opposition to a motion by Central Illinois media, including 1470 and 100.3 WMBD, to lift a protective order sealing Reditus Labs’ financial reports.
A hearing on the media petition is scheduled for next Monday.
Rossi’s Spokesperson Natalie Bauer Luce said Tuesday that “there’s a coordinated effort underway to destroy Aaron Rossi.”
“This filing is nothing more than the inadmissible notes and unsupported claims from someone who threatened Aaron Rossi,” Luce added.
Rossi, 39, faces federal tax fraud charges in an indictment filed last month accusing him of filing false tax returns in 2015, 2016 and 2017.
In his own notes provided during deposition, Nord said that sometime after 2014, his annual income “started decreasing significantly until I retired in 2017.”
Nord said staff meetings to review the CIOS’ income and expense statements stopped after Rossi took over business operations in 2013.
Keller fired Rossi in April 2018, according to the deposition.
Aaron Rossi reopened PAL Health Technologies in April 2018. Reditus Labs opened in 2019.
Reditus was appointed a receiver earlier this month to oversee financial assets amid lawsuits involving Rossi and the company.
Keller and Nord learned Rossi had “ghost payrolled” an associate of his, Jim Woodward at CIOS for doing little or no work for the company. Meanwhile, Woodward was working for Rossi at PAL Health Technologies, Nord said.
The court filing also said witnesses reported Rossi has illegally performed surgeries and has used other physician’s prescription pads or licenses to subscribe and distribute opioids and amphetamines to himself, family and others.
Nord said Rossi often touted himself as a doctor and told CIOS office staff that he wanted to be called a doctor.
Nord’s deposition accused Rossi of illegally prescribing Woodward, who at the time was dying from metastatic kidney cancer, with opiates. Woodward died a year later.
After Rossi was fired from CIOS in 2018, the company hired an accountant to audit their financial records.
