Former clinic network CEO pleads guilty in $24.4M embezzlement case

The former top executive of a Washington-based network of healthcare clinics has pleaded guilty to embezzling nearly $24.4 million to support unsuccessful trading in his personal brokerage account, according to the Department of Justice.

Patrick Alan Bucknum, 55, served as CEO, chief financial officer and chief operations officer of Community Clinic Network, or CCN, from 2017 to 2024. Before that, he had also overseen finances and operations for seven years while serving as CEO of one of the network’s member clinics.

According to the signed plea agreement cited by the DOJ, Bucknum was able to move reserve funds held by CCN to cover possible losses tied to risk-based contracts the network had entered into with managed care organizations on behalf of its nonprofit member clinics. Beginning around April 2017, prosecutors said, he started transferring those funds into his personal brokerage account.

He then used the money to trade stocks, options and exchange-traded funds, with the intention of returning the original funds and keeping any gains. But the plea agreement says he had no prior experience trading those assets. It also says his trading strategy was shaped by social media, was generally bearish and highly leveraged, and that his losses quickly grew because of poor trades.

As those losses increased, Bucknum kept taking more money from CCN in an effort to recover what had already been lost, the DOJ said. The agency said his “poor trades” led him to transfer more and more funds away from the clinic network to try to recoup his losses.

In total, Bucknum transferred nearly $30.4 million from 2017 through 2023 to support the trading activity, according to the plea. He returned about $7.4 million. The DOJ also said he used network funds to buy two motor vehicles, a boat and more than $1 million in precious metal coins.

Those assets have been forfeited to the federal government as part of the plea agreement, the DOJ said.

The case also traces Bucknum’s efforts to keep the trading losses from coming to light. According to the DOJ, he met with an attorney in 2019 after describing his trading losses as “insurmountable,” but he decided not to come forward. Instead, prosecutors said, he made a final unsuccessful attempt to reverse the losses by putting an additional $5 million at risk.

Bucknum voluntarily ended his employment at CCN in October 2024 and admitted to embezzlement in his resignation, according to the DOJ.

He has pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud and is scheduled for sentencing in September, the DOJ said. He faces maximum penalties of up to 20 years in prison, up to three years of supervised release, a fine of up to $250,000 and restitution.

The federal charges against him were made public in May.

The DOJ’s account says the scheme involved money that was meant to stay within the network’s financial structure and instead was used for personal trading activity over a period of years. The plea agreement describes a progression in which losses mounted, more money was moved from CCN and the effort to recover the losses continued despite the growing shortfall.

No additional details about CCN’s current operations, the status of the member clinics or any further response from the organization were reported in the source material.