UW Medical Center Embezzler Sentenced To A Year In Prison

A former employee of the University of Washington Medical Center has been sentenced to a year in prison for embezzling more than $230,000 by falsifying overtime and pay records.

Richard Edmund Emerson, 56, of Edmonds was convicted in March of first-degree theft. Charges initially were filed in January 1995.

Emerson, who was sentenced Friday in King County Superior Court, resigned as manager of the center’s cardiac diagnostics department in 1993 after the investigation began.

Auditors had said Emerson both filled out and certified the accuracy of his own reports of overtime and on-call pay.

He submitted these reports directly to payroll but sent his monthly time cards showing neither overtime nor on-call pay to a supervisor.