Cardinal Health has hired as its chief compliance officer the man who put former Ohio congressman James Traficant behind bars. The move comes amid federal investigations into Cardinal's distribution of controlled substances.
Craig S. Morford, 49, was appointed in August by President Bush to be the second-highest ranking official in the Department of Justice and has a background in prosecuting corruption and organized-crime cases in Ohio. Morford was the assistant U.S. attorney who led the corruption trial against Traficant, then a U.S. representative serving the Youngstown area who was sentenced to eight years in prison in 2002.
Morford will leave his federal post and join Cardinal Health on May 5, the company said yesterday. He will oversee compliance with internal and external policies and regulations of the company's operations.
"He brings deep expertise with regulatory agencies, a strong compliance background and a reputation for upholding the highest standards of ethics and integrity," Cardinal Chief Executive R. Kerry Clark said in a statement.
The Dublin-based drug-distribution company said that Daniel J. Walsh, who created Cardinal's ethics and compliance department three years ago, will leave the company.
Morford's role is an expansion of Walsh's responsibilities, which the company said centered on business conduct, employee education and policy formation. In addition to ethics and risk management, the new position focuses on regulatory, safety and environmental-health compliance.
Morford ultimately will be responsible for improving Cardinal's distribution process. The impetus for those changes was an investigation by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
The DEA in recent months has shut down three of Cardinal's 25 warehouses for distributing drugs to illicit online pharmacies. A fourth is on the DEA's watch list.
Source
No comments:
Post a Comment