GILLETTE — Alexa Kinney, who is from Gillette and was contracted as a public relations consultant for Campbell County Health in 2021, pleaded guilty earlier this month to federal charges of wire fraud, using an unauthorized credit card and making false claims to the Internal Revenue Service.
The charges stemmed from three separate schemes involving fraudulent investment opportunities, unauthorized use of a credit card and making false claims to the IRS, all of which occurred in about a one-year span, according to court documents.
CCH hired Kinney last summer as a crisis manager to help with the organization’s public relations while pushing for its affiliation with Colorado-based health care system UCHealth. She was brought on after the Campbell County Commission initially voted against CCH affiliating with UCHealth in June.
When the commissioners changed course and approved the affiliation later that summer, Kinney stayed on with the organization and consulted on the ongoing Hospice House closure as well as the Medicaid repayment CCH settled on this fall.
Kinney worked with CCH when the hospital board voted to remove then CEO Colleen Heeter from the organization on Oct. 14, and attended the special meeting via video call that night.
Kinney’s initial appearance in court was the next day, Oct. 15, after her arrest in the…
