Brecksville man charged with fraud conspiracy for stealing products from another company, relabeling them and selling the product to health care providers

A Brecksville man was charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud after he and another man conspired to steal products from another company, relabel them and sell the product under false pretenses to various health care providers.

Ryan H. Tennebar, 38, was the Director of Operations at Healthcare Essentials Inc. (HEI), an Ohio company that primarily distributed negative pressure therapy systems, also known as wound care vaccums, which promote wound healing by delivering negative pressure to patients’ wounds.

Kinetic Concepts, Inc. (KCI) was a corporation whose parent company was based in Texas. KCI developed, manufactured, and distributed proprietary wound care vaccums. KCI maintained exclusive rights for sale and distribution of its wound care vacuums to its customers, which typically included nursing homes, hospitals and rehabilitation centers.

According to the criminal information filed in U.S. District Court:

Tennebar conspired with a person identified as co-conspirator number one, who worked for KCI at a facility in El Paso. Tennebar communicated with the conspirator between 2013 and 2016 to request KCI wound vacuums, which were illegally taken from KCI facilities, nursing homes, hosptials and rehabilitation centers. The conspirator continued to fraudulently acquire KCI wound care vacuums even after he was terminated as a KCI employee in 2014.

Tennebar and the conspirator fraudulently relabeled the KCI products with HEI labels. The original KCI serial numbers were often obliterated.

Tennebar then falsely represented to HEI’s prospective customers that HEI was an authorized distributor of KCI wound care vacuums.

Tennebar sent the conspirator approximately $619,000 between 2013 and 2016 for stolen wound care vacuums. The actions of Tennebar, the conspirator and others resulted in a loss to KCI of approximately $4.2 million, according to the information.

This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Robert J. Patton and Matthew B. Kall following an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

If convicted, the defendant’s sentence will be determined by the Court after reviewing factors unique to this case, including the defendant’s prior criminal records, if any, the defendant’s role in the offense and the characteristics of the violation. In all cases the sentence will not exceed the statutory maximum and in most cases it will be less than the maximum.

An information is only a charge and is not evidence of guilt. Defendants are entitled to a fair trial in which it will be the government’s burden to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.