CHARLOTTE, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Cardinal Innovations Healthcare Solutions will pay its former CEO Richard Topping $500,000 for false and defamatory statements made by Cardinal Innovations and its law firm, McGuireWoods, at a 2018 press conference. The payment was announced by prominent civil rights attorney David Rudolf, who represents Topping.
“The Cardinal Innovations Board has accepted responsibility for the misconduct of its former employees. We continue to believe that those employees mislead not only regulators and the public, but also the Cardinal Board itself,” said Rudolf.
In addition to the half million-dollar payment, Cardinal Innovations has dismissed its lawsuit against Topping based on the same false allegations and will hand over the documents and interviews it provided to McGuireWoods that formed the basis of the press conference and the lawsuit. Three former Cardinal executives, CEO Trey Sutten, General Counsel Chuck Hollowell, and Deputy General Counsel Steve Martin, will be required to provide recorded interviews, detailing their roles in the defamation and the lawsuit. Sutten, Hollowell and Martin’s testimony can be compelled by the judge in the case, if they refuse to comply.
Topping’s lawsuit against McGuireWoods and a former partner in the firm, Kurt Meyers, will proceed. In March 2021, the North Carolina Supreme Court upheld a ruling by the Court of Appeals that McGuireWoods could be held liable for statements made by Kurt Meyers at the press conference. That case is expected to go to trial sometime later this year.
From 2009 to 2017, Topping built Cardinal Innovations from a small pilot program serving 5 Piedmont counties, into the North Carolina’s largest managed care organization, and the state’s single biggest Medicaid contractor. After Topping’s departure, Cardinal began losing counties in its service area. In October of 2021, Cardinal Innovations announced that it would lay off its entire workforce and cease operating.
In 2017, former North Carolina Health Secretary Mandy Cohen dismissed Topping, and the entire Cardinal Innovations Board based on misinformation provided to Department of Health and Human Services by Sutten, Hollowell and Martin; information that subsequently formed the basis of the defamation suit. In sworn depositions, Sutten, Hollowell and Martin admitted to using prepaid “burner” cell phones to help facilitate the takeover of Cardinal by Cohen and DHHS.