School superintendent charged with insurance fraud after she tried to help sick student
Regardless of what you think of health insurance in this country (or who should pay for it), we can (hopefully) all relate to the desire to use our resources to help someone in need.
But for a small-town school superintendent, those resources weren’t her’s to give and she not only found herself out of a job but charged with a crime as well for trying to help a sick student.
Casey Smitherman was the superintendent of Elwood Community School Corporation in Elwood, Indiana (roughly 45 miles north of Indianapolis), a town of just around 8,500 people. That is, until February 2019 when she was resigned under pressure after being arrested in January.
Her crime?
She took a 15-year-old child who was sick and not getting proper care from his parents (though it’s unclear if they were simply unable to provide it) to a medical clinic on January 9th.
According to local news channel Fox 59 News, Smitherman said that the first clinic she took him to refused to treat him because he didn’t have insurance, but later, authorities said the reason was that she was not the child’s legal guardian.
Then, they went to the second clinic, and Smitherson decided to check him in as her son, who did have coverage.
“I knew he did not have insurance, and I wanted to do all I could to help him get well,” she said in a statement. “I know this action was wrong. In the moment, my only concern was for this child’s health.”
The boy was seen in the second clinic and given a prescription for antibiotics, which Smitherman picked up at a local pharmacy under her son’s name before dropping the student off back home.
A total of $233 was fraudulently charged to her insurance company under her son’s name for the unnamed boy.
It is both insurance and identity fraud, but it’s also a good deed – and people in the town (not to mention the entire country, once the news got out) were divided on the wisdom of her actions.
Smitherman had helped the student in the past and, according to a police affidavit filed after her arrest. She had purchased clothing for him as well as helped him clean his house.
That’s something many educators do in the poverty-stricken school district.
But when he didn’t show up for school that day in January, she was more than a little concerned and checked on him herself rather than calling the state’s Department of Child Services. She feared a call to DCS might be taken from his family and placed in a foster home.
There’s no doubt she felt like she was in a heartwrenching situation at the time and was simply trying to help by doing something she knew was legally wrong but felt was still the right thing to do. We’ve all had moments when our personal ethics (or even just our emotions) have conflicted with rules about “what’s right.”
In an interview with CBS News in January said she turned herself in to police after the student shared the story of her good deed with someone else. She knew it was important to own up to it – and it was weighing on her conscience.
Smitherman was vilified by some but largely hailed as a hero online for putting a human life above all else. Her story was also used to illustrate a number of narratives – on both sides of the political spectrum – about just what’s “wrong with our system.”
She has since apologized for her actions but insisted that her mothering instincts simply wouldn’t let her ignore the student’s plight:
“I would love to go back to that moment and redo it,” she told Fox 13 News. “In that moment, I just was really worried. I knew he had strep, I’m a mom, and I knew how dangerous that was for him. And I was worried, and I wanted to get him treatment.”
The school district originally supported her, calling her actions “an unfortunate mistake,” but pointing out how tirelessly she had worked on behalf of her students and acknowledging that her actions were a result of her concern over the child’s welfare.
The law is pretty clear on this matter, and Smitherman broke it. She was charged with insurance fraud, identity deception, and official misconduct.
But she was shown mercy with her punishment.
County Prosecutor Rodney J. Cummings told The Washington Post that she was “put on a pretrial diversion program, meaning that if she is not charged in any other incident, the charges will be expunged from her record.”
Cummings said he understood what she was trying to do and why but that it was his job to uphold the law for everyone equally.
Despite being an award-winning educator with a Ph.D. in Educational Leadership and Administration, it appears that Smitherman has now left education entirely and owns a home decor and gift boutique in Indiana.
You can scroll down below to see an interview with Smitherman conducted before her resignation.
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Source: The Washington Post, Fox 59 News, Matthew McClellan Fox 15 via Twitter, CBS This Morning via YouTube, Casey Smitherman via LinkedIn