West Virginia Official Accused of Approving $34 Million in Unverified COVID Payments

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A federal grand jury in West Virginia has indicted a state health office manager over claims he approved over $34 million in Chinese coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic relief payments to a private company without confirming that the vendor provided goods and services it was under contract to deliver.

The indictment, filed on a Tuesday in a federal court in Charleston, accuses Timothy Priddy, a former director of the state Bureau for Public Health’s Center for Threat Preparedness, of providing false statements to federal agents in August 2022. and during grand jury testimony the following month.

According to prosecutors, the federal inquiry sought to ascertain whether one or multiple vendors who provided COVID-19 testing and mitigation services to the state either overbilled or received illegally from federal funds distributed through the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR).

The concerned vendor allegedly provided 49,000 COVID-19 test results from October 2020 to March 2022 but invoiced for 518,000 test kits. However, Priddy reportedly approved 13 invoices totaling $34 million.

Under the terms of the contract, the vendor was required to provide diagnostic testing using nasal swabs at residential youth facilities, hospices, pharmacies and emergency medical services workers who required frequent testing.

The vendor, who remains unnamed, is reported to be an out-of-state entity providing test kits, lab analysis, and community testing services.

In a statement provided to The Epoch Times, DHHR spokeswoman Jessica Holstein said that the department had “cooperated fully with federal investigators over the past several months and will continue to do so. DHHR’s contract with Maverick for diagnostic testing services ended in October 2022.”

“DHHR takes extremely seriously its responsibility as a steward of taxpayer dollars and is committed to upholding the highest standards of integrity and accountability,” she continued.

West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice did not return The Epoch Times’ request for comment. Speaking to reporters on Thursday, he said that he would “let the courts make a decision on his fate.”

The case is not the first controversy surrounding West Virginia’s handling of the Chinese coronavirus pandemic. In January 2021, the state’s National Guard confirmed that 42 people were mistakenly administered with a Regeneron monoclonal antibody treatment instead of Moderna’s version of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Like most Republican states, West Virginia displayed a more liberal approach in its pandemic response. Although there was an initial stay-at-home order in March 2020, the state began gradually reopening by the end of April 2020 and never imposed any further lockdowns.

In October 2021, the governor signed legislation guaranteeing workers receive medical and religious exemptions from COVID-19 vaccine mandates.

Around 8,250 deaths from COVID-19 have occurred in West Virginia since March 2020, a mortality rate of 0.46 percent, according to official statistics. Among those to contract the virus was the governor himself, who described himself as “extremely unwell” and did not deliver his State of the State address as a result.