A Lafayette woman was arrested by Attorney General investigators and booked with forgery.
The investigation started with a call from the Louisiana Department of Health; officials there said they got a call from Our Lady of Lourdes Regional Medical Center in Lafayette. OLOL officials said a letter used in an application for a grant from the HERO Fund had a forged signature on it.
That program is used to support healthcare training and education programs.
The allegation is that Rachel Willis, 48, was working at the hospital when she allegedly put the signature of an OLOL official on the letter. The letter committed OLOL to provide $250,000 in matching funds for a HERO application that would have generated about $600,000 for a college in Lafayette, an AG release states.
State investigators allege that Willis accessed the official’s signature from her OLOL email account, copied it, and pasted it onto letterhead without authorization.
According to the affidavit filed to obtain the warrant, the president of a local technical college where Willis is also employed emailed Willis requesting a letter from a ''clinical site'' on official letterhead to support a tuition assistance initiative involving the college and a third-party nonprofit. Willis said she would start working on this right away. A few hours later, the affidavit alleges that Willis sent the forged document to the president of the college via email.
The alleged forgery was discovered before any funds were released to the college, but LDH had approved the application.
Willis was booked with one count of forgery on Monday. She posted a $2,500 bond and was released the same day, records show.
The investigation is ongoing, officials say.
