Second former Outcome Health analyst sentenced to probation, won’t go to prison

A former analyst at Outcome Health won’t serve time in prison for his role in a $1 billion fraud scheme at the once-lauded Chicago company, a federal judge decided Tuesday.

U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Durkin sentenced Oliver Han to three years of probation and 200 hours of community service. Han had previously pleaded guilty to one count of felony conspiracy to commit wire fraud in 2020, as part of a plea deal.

The day before Han’s sentencing, former senior analyst Kathryn Choi was given the same sentence, after she also previously pleaded guilty to one count of felony conspiracy to commit wire fraud, as part of a plea deal.

On Wednesday, Han became the sixth person sentenced in the saga over Outcome Health, which was once one of the most talked-about tech companies in Chicago.

The company placed screens and tablets in doctors’ offices and waiting rooms that ran pharmaceutical company ads. But government prosecutors alleged during a trial of Outcome’s three top executives last year that those executives lied about how many screens and tablets Outcome had, and then used those false numbers to overcharge drug companies for the ads. Prosecutors said Outcome inflated revenue figures that were used to raise money from investors and secure loans.

A jury found all three former executives guilty of fraud. Earlier this summer, co-founder and former CEO Rishi Shah was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison, co-founder and former President Shradha Agarwal was sentenced to three years of confinement in a halfway house and former executive Brad Purdy was sentenced to 27 months in prison.

A fourth former executive, Ashik Desai, who was Han’s boss, was sentenced in September to seven months in prison. He pleaded guilty in 2019 to one count of wire fraud, as part of a plea deal with the government, and he was the star witness testifying against his bosses during the trial.

Before his sentencing, Han wrote a letter to Durkin explaining that he had trusted Desai and others. He wrote that he was only 24 years old when he started the job and expressed remorse that he didn’t leave the job of his own volition when he realized that what he was doing was wrong.

“In hindsight, I wish in those early days of my new job, that I had truly realized I was being manipulated … ,” Han wrote. “I think I was too naive (stupid) at the time to fully understand the bigger picture, but I knew what I was doing was not right. The word ‘fraud’ was not in my head at the time, but it should have been.”

He wrote that he stayed at the job because he had worked hard to learn it, was good at it, thought it was a good company, his bosses seemed to care about him and, at the time, the thought of searching for a new job and potentially being unemployed seemed daunting.

“At the end of the day, none of these factors, not even combined, can excuse my terrible decision to stay, but these were my circumstances at Outcome,” Han wrote.

The government also noted in its sentencing memo that Han cooperated during the investigation and did not profit off the fraud scheme, beyond earning his salary.