LAS VEGAS, Dec 20 (Reuters) – A seven-term U.S.
congresswoman from Nevada, Shelley Berkley, violated ethics
rules by using her office to try to help her husband’s medical
practice but had no “corrupt intent” in doing so, the U.S. House
Ethics Committee said on Thursday.
The committee said no further action was needed against the
Democratic member of the House of Representatives. It had
launched a probe in July into allegations Berkley may have been
improperly involved in a bid to help save a hospital program
linked to her husband’s business.
Berkley’s husband, Larry Lehrner, is a kidney specialist who
owns a string of dialysis facilities and had a contract with the
transplant unit at University Medical Center in Las Vegas when
it was threatened with closure.
Nevada Republicans asserted in their initial complaint to
Congress that Berkley would have directly benefited financially
from her involvement in the 2008 case due to her husband’s links
to the hospital’s kidney center.
Berkley, who failed in November to unseat Nevada Republican
Dean Heller from his U.S. Senate seat in a narrow race, has said
her effort to help keep the center open when it was facing
federal action that could have resulted in its closure was not
motivated by a potential financial interest.
She said she did nothing wrong.
A House Ethics panel agreed that her work to help the
transplant center did not constitute a violation, but said that
it was a mistake for her office to assist her husband’s dialysis
business in getting payment reimbursements.
“Representative Berkley had a legitimate concern, raised at
the time that these issues were ongoing, that failures on the
part of government insurers to reimburse providers in a timely
fashion might result in the providers opting not to see patients
insured by those programs,” the Ethics Committee said in a
statement.
It added that Berkley testified credibly that she had not
helped her husband to obtain future benefits, and that the level
of assistance her office provided him was not unusual compared
to that given to other doctors.
But the panel ruled that she was mistaken when she
determined her course of action was proper, although her lack of
“any corrupt intent” mitigates the severity of the violations.
Heller, who had been a member of the House at the time, also
joined in the Nevada delegation’s efforts to keep the government
from closing the kidney unit.
(Reporting by Cynthia Johnston; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
