COVID-19 Testing

The FBI has been conducting a criminal investigation into the Santa Ana Unified School District’s agreements with several companies that provided weekly COVID-19 testing to students and staff during the pandemic, according to documents obtained by LAist.

The contract at the center of the FBI inquiry, for the 2021-2022 school year, was among the largest pandemic-era school testing contracts in the state. It was worth well over $100 million, according to an estimate given to independent investigators in a separate wide-ranging investigation, and LAist calculations. The testing was billed by the contractor directly to the federal government and private insurance companies.

Santa Ana Unified is the second largest school district in Orange County, with about 44,000 students and 5,000 employees.

A federal subpoena reviewed by LAist targets records from the COVID-19 testing operation dating back to Aug. 1, 2021. The documents sought included communications, billing records and contracts with businesses owned by Todd Ament, and other businesses for which he served as a contact with the district, according to the subpoena and documents obtained by LAist from the district.

Ament was a key figure in a recent, wide-ranging government corruption scandal in Anaheim.

He was a major player in Anaheim politics who led the city’s chamber of commerce before he was indicted on a variety of corruption charges and pleaded guilty to several counts of fraud in 2022.

In federal wiretaps conducted as part of that previous investigation, Ament described himself as part of a “cabal” of elected officials, political consultants, and business leaders that worked covertly to influence Anaheim politics. An FBI investigator described him in an affidavit as a “ringleader” of the group.

Three months before the Santa Ana Unified school board approved a no-bid contract with a company tied to Ament, the district got 18 bids from other firms in response to a request for proposals for COVID-19 testing. The district scrapped that effort after the winning bidder sought to renegotiate some of the terms.

Then, shortly before the school year started, Anza Vang, an executive with the Orange County Health Care Agency, recommended Ament to the school district as a testing partner, according to documents obtained by LAist.

A spokesperson for the Orange County Health Care Agency, Ellen Guevara, told LAist in an email that the testing laboratory that got the contract, Diagnostic Laboratory Science (DLS), “was one of a limited number of vendors at the time that were able to offer robust COVID-19 testing.” Ament helped broker the deal with DLS, according to district documents.

Representatives of DLS did not respond to requests for comment.

Several representatives for the school district told LAist the state Attorney General’s office is also actively investigating the testing operation. The AG’s office did not respond to requests for comment.

Fraud and COVID-19

The investigations into COVID-19 testing operations at Santa Ana Unified are a small snapshot of potential ethical and legal problems that occurred during the pandemic as unprecedented sums of money flowed from the federal government to address the public health emergency.

Isaac Bledsoe, an investigator with the U.S. Office of Inspector General for the federal Department of Health and Human Services, told LAist the amount of money defrauded nationwide during the COVID-19 pandemic from patients and the federal government was “definitely hundreds of millions of dollars.”

And it’s still happening. The watchdog agency’s most recent enforcement action related to COVID-19 fraud was in April of 2023.

Jodi Balma, a political science professor at Fullerton College who watches Orange County closely, said “the full report of misspending of COVID dollars has not begun to be written.”

She and others told LAist that the pandemic caused many public agencies to bypass some accountability standards to rapidly respond to the changing emergency.

“We just don’t have a procedure to guard against corruption, have transparency, and also go that quick,” Balma said.

The Anaheim backstory

The documents LAist obtained from the district provide new details about Ament’s involvement in securing a COVID-19 testing contract for his own and other businesses. Ament’s company, alternately called Accurate Health Partners or Accurate Diagnostic Partners, coordinated the testing and delivered swabs to the lab for analysis.

The documents also provide insights into accusations that Ament sought to illegally profit off of the contract in the form of “kickbacks,” as alleged in a recent investigation ordered by the city of Anaheim.

Ament’s wife, Lea Ament, a nurse and former local hospital executive, was also involved in the school district’s testing operation through her husband’s company and another company, Care One Health Partners, according to school district documents. Until recently, Lea Ament was listed as the secretary of Care One Health Partners on business documents filed with the California Secretary of State.

For years, Todd Ament played an outsized role in Anaheim politics before pleading guilty to federal criminal charges for defrauding a cannabis company, using federal COVID-19 business relief funds for personal expenses, and lying on his tax return.

None of those crimes appear to be connected to the Santa Ana Unified contracts. Todd Ament’s guilty pleas in the Anaheim probe pre-date subpoenas in the FBI’s Santa Ana inquiry.

The initial criminal complaint against Todd Ament in the Anaheim case was filed in May 2022 and noted that he had begun cooperating with the federal government. He has yet to be sentenced.

Todd Ament did not respond to multiple calls and emails requesting comment for this story. Daniel Silva, who is listed as Ament’s lawyer in recent court filings, also did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Reached by phone, Lea Ament declined to comment.

Where the Santa Ana Unified inquiry stands

It’s unclear where the investigations by the FBI and the California Attorney General’s office stand. Ciaran McEvoy, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, which subpoenaed the records, said the agency could not confirm or deny the existence of an investigation. A spokesperson for the FBI also said they could not comment and could not confirm or deny the existence of an investigation.

Lawyers, administrators, and current school board members for Santa Ana Unified said they could not comment because of the investigations.

The documents LAist obtained through a public records request reveal details behind allegations made during an independent corruption investigation ordered in 2022 by the Anaheim City Council. That investigation came in the wake of a federal probe and included allegations of potential improprieties in the award and administration of the lucrative COVID-19 testing contract with the Santa Ana Unified School District for the 2021-2022 school year.

In their final report, released in late July of 2023, the Anaheim investigators included portions of interviews with sources alleging that Todd Ament used “behind the scenes” influence to obtain a COVID-19 testing contract with Santa Ana Unified and then sought kickbacks from the deal for him and his wife, Lea Ament.

Eric Morgan, a representative of Diagnostic Laboratory Science (DLS), which initially held the school testing contract, told the investigators the contract was worth an estimated $128 million. Morgan estimated Todd Ament made $20-30 million from the district testing operation.

According to the new documents obtained by LAist, as well as testimony cited in the Anaheim corruption report, Todd Ament helped broker a no-bid contract for weekly COVID-19 testing of students and staff for the 2021-2022 school year on behalf of DLS, an established local laboratory.

The documents show that companies headed by Todd Ament and Lea Ament organized and oversaw the ordering and collection of saliva and nasal swabs for COVID-19 testing, and the delivery of those tests to the lab for analysis.

An internal memo from the school district, written two days after Todd Ament was charged with unrelated federal crimes, described his role as “a 3rd party COVID testing vendor and laboratory contact for DLS and MEDLAB2020.” MedLab2020 succeeded DLS in analyzing COVID-19 tests for the district.

How the documents intersect with the Anaheim investigation

The independent corruption investigation commissioned by the Anaheim City Council in August 2022 and released in late July 2023 included allegations by people involved in Santa Ana Unified’s COVID-19 testing operation regarding Todd Ament’s role in securing and administering the contract.

In their final report, investigators noted that Todd Ament “seemed to vanish” from the Anaheim political scene around the beginning of 2021. Witnesses told investigators that he saw lucrative business opportunities in COVID-19 testing as businesses and schools began to reopen, according to the corruption report.

Two brothers, Firas and Moe Tamary, told investigators that they hired Todd Ament as a consultant for DLS for about three months at the beginning of 2021. Both Tamarys are listed as agents for DLS with the California Secretary of State.

They told investigators that Ament then quit his consulting job with them to start up his own business, Accurate Diagnostic Partners (previously known as Accurate Health Partners). According to the report, Accurate Diagnostic Partners administered COVID-19 tests and collected swabs to be delivered to DLS for testing.

Firas Tamary told investigators that Todd Ament claimed to have an “inside connection” at Santa Ana Unified and assured them they would get approval for a COVID-19 testing contract from the district’s board of education.

Firas Tamary also told investigators that he and his brother agreed with Ament on a fixed price they would pay him per swab collected, based on the Medicare reimbursement rate. Tamary told investigators that at one point Todd Ament asked for a higher rate, but the Tamary brothers told him that would be considered “a kickback” and was against the law, according to the report.

A shift to another lab shortly after district approval

According to the final report of the Anaheim investigation, the Tamarys said that Todd Ament claimed to have a better offer from another lab and tried to pressure DLS to pay him more. Firas Tamary said they declined, telling Todd Ament that paying him above the set reimbursement rate would violate several state and federal laws.

That’s when, Firas Tamary told investigators, Todd Ament “basically stole” the Santa Ana Unified contract from DLS and “found a different lab to work with,” according to the report.

LAist reached out to Moe Tamary, Firas Tamary and Eric Morgan via phone and email to request comment on this story. They did not respond to multiple requests.

Shortly after the district’s school board approved the COVID-19 testing contract with DLS, documents obtained by LAist show that Todd Ament began work to get the contract reassigned to a different lab: MedLab2020, whose CEO is Matthew Collins, according to business documents filed with the California Secretary of State. Collins did not respond to multiple requests for comment from LAist for this story.

Firas Tamary signed the reassignment agreement on Sept. 17, 2021, the district records show.

According to the criminal complaint filed against Todd Ament for his role in the Anaheim corruption scandal, Ament started cooperating with the FBI on Sept. 14, 2021.

On Sept. 28, 2021, Todd Ament wrote to the district’s head of risk management, Sara Nazir, saying he wanted to discuss a revision to the contract that would assign all rights and responsibilities for COVID-19 testing of students and staff to MedLab2020. He also included a new paragraph in the contract that would officially list his company, Accurate Diagnostic Partners, as a subcontractor for the first time, according to school district records.

LAist was unable to find any record of the Santa Ana Unified school board approving the contract reassignment. An LAist review of board meeting agendas through January 2022 did not turn up any items related to the contract reassignment.

John Palacio, the former Santa Ana Unified trustee who was on the school board at the time, told LAist he was unaware of the contract reassignment. “And that is of serious concern to me as a board member because they [district staff] have an obligation to inform the board, especially about something as significant as that contract,” Palacio said.

Palacio also said he had never heard of Todd Ament, or his involvement in the testing contract, until contacted by LAist for this story.

District emails obtained by LAist show Palacio questioned district administrators about why the district hadn’t gone out to bid for the contract, how testing companies would be paid, and whether the district had a budget for supporting the testing operation with staff and other logistics.

He told LAist that district administrators told him at the time that the contract was no-cost and therefore didn’t need to be put out for competitive bidding, and that testing would be paid, as the contract states, through private insurance or through the federal CARES Act. Palacio said his other questions went largely unanswered.

Fermin Leal, a spokesperson for the district, told LAist that current school board members and staff could not comment on the matter because of the ongoing investigation.

The roles of Lea Ament and others

Morgan, the DLS representative, told the Anaheim investigators that Care One Health Partners was in charge of ordering the COVID-19 tests that were administered to Santa Ana Unified students and staff. Documents obtained by LAist show that Care One Health Partners also acted as an intermediary between insurance companies and students and staff to help troubleshoot billing problems.

Lea Ament identifies herself in district documents obtained by LAist as the chief operating officer of Care One Health Partners, even though documents filed with the Secretary of State during the time of the contract identify her as the secretary of the company.

In emails obtained by LAist, Lea Ament also identifies herself as president of her husband’s company, Accurate Health Care, which was coordinating testing for the district. She is not listed as an officer of the company on records filed with the Secretary of State.

Lea Ament was previously executive director of cancer services at St. Jude Medical Center in Fullerton, but she left in 2021, according to a hospital spokesperson.

Dr. Albert Lai, a pain medicine doctor based in Placentia, is listed in records filed with the Secretary of State as the chief executive officer of Care One Health Partners. Lai did not respond to messages seeking comment left at his office and other phone numbers listed for him.

Morgan told Anaheim investigators that approximately 1 million tests would be ordered under the contract and Care One Health Partners would charge approximately $68 per test. He told investigators that Lea Ament would receive half of the money from every test.

“Todd’s wife somehow, even though there were doctors’ names on everything, worked out where she got fifty percent of all the profits for Care One and obviously, he [Todd Ament] owned Accurate, so he was dipping into multiple places,” Morgan told investigators, according to their report.

Lai did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Kris Murray, a former member of the Anaheim City Council who runs a consulting firm, was also involved in the testing operation at Santa Ana Unified. Murray developed FAQs about the testing program and communicated with students and staff about insurance problems on behalf of the Aments’ companies and the district, documents show.

Murray did not respond to LAist’s requests for comment. It was not immediately clear who hired her to do the work and how much she was paid.

The end of the lucrative contract

On May 16, 2022, the federal government filed a criminal complaint against Todd Ament, detailing allegations that he defrauded a cannabis company, used federal COVID-19 business relief funds for personal expenses, and falsified tax returns.

Two days later, on May 18, 2022, Santa Ana Unified staff sent an internal memo informing district administrators of the charges against Todd Ament. They also stated that Collins, the CEO of MedLab2020, told the district he had bought Accurate Health Partners from Todd Ament the week prior, and that Todd Ament would not have a role in the company going forward.

In the Anaheim corruption report, Morgan, the DLS representative, told investigators he heard Collins had bought Todd Ament’s company for $10 million.

The district signed a new contract with MedLab2020 in the spring of 2022 to provide weekly COVID-19 testing to students and staff in the 2022-2023 school year. This time, the district was responsible for paying the company for staff testing, according to the contract obtained by LAist, but not for student testing, which would continue to be billed to students’ insurance companies or to federal pandemic relief programs.

At the start of the 2022-2023 school year, Santa Ana Unified dropped its mandate that all students and staff be tested weekly for COVID-19, instead making the testing voluntary.

MedLab2020 provided voluntary testing until the district received the federal government’s subpoena on Feb. 6, 2023. In an email sent the next day, Dr. Sara Nazir, who heads the school district’s risk management department and oversaw COVID-19 testing for the district, advised that she was suspending MedLab2020 from conducting further COVID-19 tests on campus.

Fermin Leal, the district’s spokesperson, told LAist that the district gradually shifted from in-person testing to providing at-home testing kits to students and staff during the 2022-2023 school year. Leal said those who wanted in-person testing were referred to community providers.

By then, vaccines were widely available and the chaos of the early pandemic days were behind school administrators.

LAist reviewed details of the Santa Ana Unified COVID-19 testing agreements with Jose Moreno, a former Anaheim city council member. Moreno has criticized the influence of Anaheim’s business elite — which has often been behind closed doors — over public policymaking in recent years.

“It’s not surprising,” Moreno said of Todd Ament’s involvement in the highly lucrative no-bid contract.

“Anytime there’s public dollars that are supposed to help people, we see the same pigs at the trough,” he said.