{"id":729913,"date":"2026-06-27T21:17:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T21:17:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/729913\/"},"modified":"2026-06-27T21:17:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T21:17:16","slug":"former-washington-health-care-executive-pleads-guilty-to-24-million-wire-fraud-scheme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/729913\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Washington health care executive pleads guilty to $24 million wire fraud scheme"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>WENATCHEE, Wash.  \u2014 A former health care executive in North Central Washington has pleaded guilty to wire fraud after prosecutors say he siphoned tens of millions of dollars from his company over several years to fund risky investments and personal purchases.<\/p>\n<p>Patrick Alan Bucknum, 55, formerly of Wenatchee, pleaded guilty June 24, 2026, in the Eastern District of Washington to one count of wire fraud,  United States Attorney Pete Serrano said. <\/p>\n<p>Bucknum was the chief executive officer of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.communityclinicnetwork.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Community Clinic Network<\/a>, a Wenatchee-based company that managed health care payment contracts for a conglomerate of health care clinics across Washington, according to court documents. <\/p>\n<p>Prosecutors say that beginning in April 2017, Bucknum devised a scheme to take money from CCN\u2019s business bank accounts and attempted to invest it in stocks, options, and exchange-traded funds. <\/p>\n<p>Court documents say Bucknum initially intended to keep any profits for himself and return the embezzled funds to CCN, and that he was influenced by social media showing aggressive trading strategies. Prosecutors say he lost most of the money through poor trades, then embezzled additional funds in an attempt to recover his losses.<\/p>\n<p>Between 2017 and 2023, prosecutors say Bucknum embezzled about $30 million from CCN to invest and returned about $7 million to CCN during that same period. <\/p>\n<p>Court documents also say he used embezzled funds for personal purchases, including $100,000 for a pickup truck, $77,000 for a Tesla and $33,000 for a boat. In August 2024, prosecutors say he embezzled $1,199,000 to purchase precious metal coins.<\/p>\n<p>In total, prosecutors say Bucknum caused a loss to CCN of about $24,368,427.37.<\/p>\n<p>As part of his plea agreement, prosecutors said Bucknum agreed to forfeit to the United States the pickup truck, Tesla, boat, and precious metal coins, including coins in gold, silver, and platinum, that were obtained with embezzled funds.<\/p>\n<p>Bucknum is scheduled for sentencing on Sept. 23, 2026.<\/p>\n<p>The case was investigated by the FBI. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WENATCHEE, Wash. \u2014 A former health care executive in North Central Washington has pleaded guilty to wire fraud&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":729914,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[97,252,253],"class_list":["post-729913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=729913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729913\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/729914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=729913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=729913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=729913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}