Another criminal case alleging financial misconduct by an official with a Hawai'i charity has been filed in court, this one against a former high-level executive at The Queen's Medical Center.

Patricia Syling this week pleaded not guilty to an eight-count federal mail fraud indictment alleging she defrauded Queen's of $545,000.

She is accused of steering hospital work to two businesses that she owned and failing to disclose her company ties to Queen's from April 2002 to July 2004, when she served as corporate compliance officer for the not-for-profit hospital.

However, Syling said in response to a civil lawsuit filed against her by Queen's in 2005 that her boss at the medical center, Chief Operating Officer Daniel Jessop, knew all about her connections to the companies and approved the "consulting" work.

She also claimed the consulting contracts were approved by the Queen's board of directors.

Syling, who's also known as Patricia Cleary-Syling, said in the pending civil suit that Queen's paid her $400,000 for work she performed under the consulting contracts but still owed her another $2.2 million.

She also said Queen's "has similar consulting contract arrangements with other employees, including senior vice presidents and members of the Queen's board of directors."

Rebecca Pollard, spokeswoman for Queen's, declined comment on the criminal or civil cases involving Syling.

Pollard said Jessop left his post at the nonprofit last September and is no longer an executive at Queen's. Jessop is identified in the federal indictment of Syling only as "D.J." and is described as "a senior executive and corporate office of QMC." He is not charged in the indictment.

Syling's attorney, John Edmunds, could not be reached for comment yesterday on the criminal and civil litigation.

According to the indictment and the civil suit, Syling's duties at Queen's included running the institution's business office and oversight of Queen's bill collections.

Syling "was authorized to solicit and negotiate vendor and service contracts" to collect money from private health insurers and government programs like Medicare and Medicaid," the indictment said.

Part of her "scheme and artifice to defraud" was awarding contracts to two sole proprietorships that she operated, Healthcare Financial & Compliance Management and HealthCare Financial Group, the indictment alleged.

Syling did not disclose to Queen's that the companies were operated out of her home and she was the only employee, the government alleged.

Syling was the Queen's official responsible for verifying the legitimacy of the contracts and for recommending that bills from the businesses be paid by Queen's, the government charged.

Work performed by the businesses, if it was performed at all, was actually done by Syling as part of her duties as a Queen's official, the indictment charged.

Payments were sent to bank accounts opened by Syling at a Bank of America branch in Tennessee. The government also charged that Syling used her familiarity with the medical center's computer system to bill Queen's collection fees for moneys the hospital staff had already collected.

The allegations in the indictment closely parallel charges made against Syling in the state court civil lawsuit filed by Queen's in 2005.

Syling resigned from Queen's in August 2004 but continued working under the consulting contracts and "is still owed approximately $2.2 million for work performed pursuant to said contracts," Syling claimed in the suit.

Several officials and employees of Hawai'i charitable institutions have run afoul of the law in the past year.

Last week, Fe Nakahara, an employee of the Arizona Memorial Museum Association, admitted in federal court that she stole $170,000 from the nonprofit in 2006.

Last month, Timothy Janusz, an executive in charge of planned giving for the Salvation Army here, admitted that he stole $300,000 from the charity and several elderly benefactors.

Earlier this week, The Advertiser reported that Diana Pinard, an executive at the National Kidney Foundation of Hawai'i, was on parole for a felony criminal conviction when she was hired by the local charity in 2005.

She has been placed on paid leave while the charity conducts an internal review of the hiring, according to Kidney Foundation executive director Glen Hayashida.

Reach Jim Dooley at jdooley@honoluluadvertiser.com.