At least some of the money apparently defrauded from Butler Health System by its former chief operating officer has been reimbursed, the medical group's top employee confirmed Thursday.

During an annual public meeting Thursday, Ken DeFurio, Butler Health System's CEO and president, answered a few questions about evidence of a fraud that BHS previously confirmed was being investigated. BHS said the evidence suggested the hospital's COO was responsible.

As previously reported, sources have confirmed that former COO Stephanie Roskovski and her husband, former county detective Scott Roskovski, are subjects of a federal investigation.

Stephanie was fired by BHS in August of 2017, and Scott was fired by the county in August of 2018.

DeFurio would not comment on several aspects of the situation, and he would not clarify how much money had been defrauded or reimbursed.

“That is as much as I will say,” he noted, referring to the reimbursement.

“I really can't answer any questions about this,” DeFurio said. “That situation continues to be under investigation and is in the hands of the proper authorities.”

Besides the reimbursement, DeFurio confirmed how the fraud had been found.

“One of our employees in our accounting department brought it forward,” he said.

And he said steps were taken in the wake of the situation to prevent future fraud. “The board here and the senior management here took this very, very seriously,” DeFurio said. “We engaged outside expertise to review all of our internal management controls, which is what you are referencing. They did a thorough review. There were a number of recommendations made, and we have implemented all of those recommendations based off that expert review.

“We have significantly minimized the likelihood and possibility of it occurring again.”

District Attorney Richard Goldinger previously shared that an inspector with the U.S. Postal Service and a special agent with the IRS criminal investigation division under the Department of Treasury came to him seeking information about Scott Roskovski. Roskovski's Switchback MX racetrack was mentioned, Goldinger said.

DeFurio said that the hospital group has no current sponsorship arrangement with the racetrack, but did once.

“There was a minor sponsorship previously,” DeFurio said.

He could not confirm what funding source within the hospital system had been affected. BHS's official statement on the fraud states that it did not involve “the BHS Foundation, patient cash, co-pays, patient accounts, medical billing or insurance fraud, including Medicare.”

DeFurio and other staff members detailed how the hospital performed in 2018 as a whole. “It was a good year,” he said.

They highlighted better than average scores in patient safety and high overall health rankings for the county as compared to Pennsylvania at large.

For a full detail of BHS's financial and medical performance metrics for 2018, check the business page in Sunday's edition of the Butler Eagle.