PHILIPSBURG – The Mental Health Foundation may want to think twice before it goes into business with Ethegrity Healthcare Consulting because the main players behind this company have a history most people would describe as highly questionable.
Those leading players are Fredericka Ford, the self-proclaimed billionaire who gave a presentation about Ethegrity to the Parliament in Philipsburg in October and her husband Wesley Mason III. In that meeting, Ford acknowledged that she had made a proposal to the Mental Health Foundation worth $2.4 million; MHF’s former interim director Eileen Healy spoke last week in Parliament of a report that contained nothing new but nevertheless came with an invoice of $200,000 US Dollars. Whether that bill was paid is unclear, but Healy said that she had sent Ford with her invoice to SZV.
We have already established that Ford lied on a LinkedIn-page about her membership of the Spelman College Board of Trustees. Spelman portrays itself as the global leader in education for women of African descent, so being a board member would have looked rather impressive on Ford’s curriculum. But Ford has never been a board member there. We asked the archivist at Spelman to check if Ford is (or ever was) indeed a board member, and this is the answer we got from archivist Kassandra Ware: “I have confirmed through various sources that Ms. Fredericka Ford has not ever been a Board of Trustees Member at Spelman College.”
Ford’s presentation made clear that she was first and foremost in the Parliament meeting to sell the services of Ethegrity. Chances that she will succeed are slim at best. Ford’s husband (or partner – according to our sources – her marital status is unclear) is Wesley Mason III. He is the CEO of Meridian Behavioral Health Systems, and if the history of that company is anything to go by, it can be summed up in just two words: bad news. Until February 2019, Ford was Meridian’s Vice President of Operations.
In 2017 Meridian surfaced in West Virginia with the purchase of the Highland Hospital in Charleston. Highland had built a new hospital that was financed with a high-interest bond issue. When it became clear that it could not keep up with the payments, the hospital went in search of partners. A deal with Acadia (where Ford was a CEO from 2007 to 2009, according to her LinkedIn profile) fell through before Meridian stepped in.
Before the deal was closed, Meridian went through a thorough vetting process conducted by the board, a public relations firm and Highland’s financial advisors. They were unable to find any worrisome information about Meridian or about Wes Mason,” a source close to the transaction told stmaartennews.com.
Meridian was bought by CHCT (Community Healthcare Trust), a publicly-traded real investment trust. According to a report published on eresearch.fidelity.com, CHCT focuses on “owning income-producing real estate properties associated primarily with the delivery of outpatient healthcare services throughout the United States.”
“Meridian purchased the property and accounts receivable with a loan from ServisFirst bank who had the right to first lien on any accounts at Highland,” the source said. Wes Mason was the only known member of Meridian Behavioral Health Systems (MBHS). Included in the deal was Process Strategies – an outpatient center with a pharmacy that did approximately 5000 – 6000 outpatient psychiatric visits per month – and Highland Health Center – a 16-bed detox center located on the hospital premises. The hospital itself had a residential unit of 24 beds for children and 80 acute beds for children, adolescents and adults. As such, Highland was the only psychiatric hospital within a 90-minutes radius, serving patients from all counties in West Virginia and forming an important part of the state’s mental health system.
What could possibly go wrong for an institution that had been serving the community for more than sixty years? Meridian closed the deal on September 30, 2017. Highland was current with all creditors, and as a not-for-profit organization, it was exempt from property and business and occupation taxes. The hospital had $3 million in cash on the date of the deal.
Mason, the new sheriff in town, immediately demanded that Highland transfer $2.5 million into his account, supposedly to pay his lawyers. The hospital later discovered that these lawyers were never paid.
Mason allegedly started bleeding Highland for money on a more or less permanent basis. Together with his Chief Financial Officer Chris Frater, Mason asked almost on a daily basis for transfers into their accounts. While the hospital management was led to believe that this money would be used to pay the rent, it turned out that rent was never paid.
Between January and October 2018, Mason stopped paying payroll taxes to the IRS. By the time the IRS took action, Highland owed more than $1 million in taxes.
Meanwhile, Mason seemingly developed a taste for hiring quite some experts on the corporate level, allegedly among them his son Lamont and his daughter Taylor.
What really did Highland a huge disservice was Mason’s decision to take out so-called lines of credit with companies that can best be described as loan sharks. Others referred to them as gangster loans. According to court documents, Mason pledged all of Highland’s assets to these companies. He also pledged the assets of a company he did not even own: Old Vineyard Behavioral Health, a publicly traded part of Acadia. When the money from these loans came into the Highland bank accounts, Mason would order the funds transferred to his vehicle MBHS. Then he would authorize the lenders to withdraw money on a daily basis from the Highland accounts to repay the cash advances. Some of these loans came at interest rates of 150 percent.
Among these so-called cash-advance companies were Fundkite, Yellowstone Capital and Green Capital Funding. The Federal Trade Commission has taken Yellowstone to court for allegedly deceiving and overcharging small businesses. The case is still pending.
These actions drove Highland deeper and deeper into debt and Mason countered this with cost-cutting measures. He closed down Process Strategies and started to lay off hospital staff.
“All in all, a source close to the developments in West Virginia said, “Mr. Mason and his merry band of thieves stole $13 million from Highland Hospital while stiffing vendors, floating payroll, not paying payroll taxes, pension premiums or provider and business taxes.”
Court documents show that between April 2018 and February 2019, $1.7 million was withdrawn from Highland bank accounts. Highland reached a settlement with the loan sharks about an outstanding amount of $1 million for $250,000.
Mason is currently present on LinkedIn as the “owner of Mobility Payment Solutions” in Knoxville, Tennessee. At the same time, another page profiles him as the CEO of Meridian Behavioral Health Systems in Brentwood, Tennessee.
An internet-search for Mobile Payment Solutions only leads back to Mason’s LinkedIn page, creating the impression that there is no such company.
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Related articles:
Fredericka Ford: She is a billionaire and her name isn’t Oprah
MP Brison brought Fredericka Ford to St. Maarten
Therapy via the internet proposed as a solution for mental health care on St. Maarten
A multi-million dollar sales pitch
Fredericka Ford (Ethegrity) presentation: Part 1 – Parliamentary Subcommittee meeting on Health (VSA)
https://www.facebook.com/177935339445931/videos/1045449539216654
Fredericka Ford (Ethegrity) presentation: Part 2 – Parliamentary Subcommittee meeting on Health (VSA)
https://www.facebook.com/sxmparliament/videos/2771061306546758/
MHF dossier
