Burr Ridge Thief Makes 7-Figure Salary: Feds

BURR RIDGE, IL – Federal prosecutors are seeking a long prison sentence for a Burr Ridge man who pleaded guilty in March to swindling $2.5 million from two hospitals.

Dennis Haggerty, 46, lives comfortably and had no reason to steal the money other than "simple greed," prosecutors said in a sentencing memo late last month.

According to the memo, Haggerty reported a seven-figure salary from his current employer, which the government did not identify.

He lives in a large, six-bedroom house worth more than $800,000, owns a number of cars, and had a stable childhood with two working parents, the memo said. His house is on Hunter Court.

According to a criminal complaint, Haggerty and two business partners formed At Diagnostics in March 2020 to sell personal protective equipment. This happened just as the pandemic was starting.

Representing the business, Haggerty sold hundreds of thousands of N95 respirator masks to two hospitals, one of which was identified as Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. He kept the money, but did not deliver the products, prosecutors said.

"His falsification of a bank statement, his multiple lies to the hospitals, his money laundering and his retention of millions of dollars in ill-gotten funds – even after the jig was up – were all particularly egregious aspects of his conduct," prosecutors said.

They said that while the fraud was short-lived, it was not a temporary lapse in judgment.

Haggerty's limited criminal history mainly consists of DUIs, the memo said. Prosecutors acknowledged Haggerty has paid $550,000 back to the hospitals already.

The prosecutors recommended a federal judge hand down a "substantial" prison sentence for Haggerty.

They also proposed he pay the remaining $2 million. They asked for Haggerty to forfeit three cars he bought with the stolen money – a 2013 Maserati GranTurismo, a 2015 Land Rover and a 2017 Maserati Ghibli, prosecutors said.

The government also asked to file a lien of $460,000 on Haggerty's house, which amounts to the current equity.

In a response last week to the federal memo, Haggerty's lawyer, Edmund Wanderling, said his client did not plan out his fraud. Rather, Haggerty panicked and reacted in a wrong way when another company lied to him about the masks being sent to one of the hospitals, Wanderling said.

His attorney also said Haggerty was a victim of his partners' fraud as well.

Wanderling proposed no prison sentence for his client. He said the hospitals' ability to get the stolen money back would be diminished if Haggerty were sent to prison.

The lawyer said Haggerty made a "very poor spontaneous decision and his lies were short-lived."