Complete 2012 forensic audit documents - Kansas Bioscience ...

Allegations have been made that Mr. Thornton called in a few favors to obtain the job with
Cleveland Clinic Innovations after announcement of the Forensic Audit. It has been alleged that
Director Bill Sanford and/or Mr. Baiju Shah 38 assisted Thornton in obtaining his new
employment. Mr. Sanford is an Advisory Board member of Cleveland Clinic Innovations and a
Board member of Cleveland Clinic and Mr. Shah is the CEO of BioEnterprise, of which
Cleveland Clinic is one of the founding members. Both Messrs. Sanford and Shah deny assisting
Thornton in his move to Cleveland Clinic Innovations. The forensic review of Thornton’s email
from the email server and computer forensics performed on Thornton’s KBA computer indicates
the following chain of events. Please refer to Exhibit 25 for the relevant emails described below.
The review of Mr. Thornton’s email indicates that he was first contacted by Chris Coburn, the
Executive Director of Cleveland Clinic Innovations, regarding a possible employment
opportunity on December 7, 2010. The email reads “Thomas-we might be brewing something in
Cleveland that (would) be of interest to you. Do you want to chat more? If so, what (would)
your target (compensation) be?” Thornton replied that same date that he was “intrigued” and
agreed to talk more. On December 8, 2010, Thornton’s KBA cell phone records indicate a 21
minute call was placed to the phone number associated with Chris Coburn at Cleveland Clinic
Innovations.
On December 12, 2010, Mr. Coburn again contacted Mr. Thornton and stated that he had
mentioned Thornton to one of their key people and there was real interest. Thornton replied on
December 13, 2010 that he was absolutely interested and would forward his bio, which he did on
December 14, 2010.
On December 19, 2010, Mr. Coburn asked Mr. Thornton when he would be available to come to
Cleveland for an interview. On December 21, 2010, Thornton confirmed that he would be in
Cleveland on January 6, 2011 and asked for a position description and a listing of who he would
be meeting with.
On January 5, 2011, Mr. Thornton verified that the meeting the next day was still on schedule
and again asked for more information on the position and who he would be meeting with. That
same day, Thornton received a schedule of meetings from 11:30 a.m. through dinner, with a
breakfast meeting with the Chairman of Cleveland Clinic Innovations the following morning.
Thornton placed a one minute phone call on his KBA cell phone to the phone number associated
with Linda Ludrosky, Chris Coburn’s Administrative Assistant.
BKD noted that the plane ticket purchased for Mr. Thornton to fly to Cleveland for the
January 6, 2011 interviews was paid for by KBA as discussed in more detail later in this report.
BKD asked Thornton in his August 24, 2011 interview if the January trip was an interview for a
job. Thornton replied that it was not; that Cleveland Clinic Innovations was just interested in
hearing about KBA’s successful business model.
On January 11, 2011, Mr. Coburn sent Mr. Thornton an article entitled “Cleveland Clinic,
MedStar join forces to move medical technologies to market.” Thornton replied, “Great
news…let me (know) what the next steps are.”
38 Baiju Shah and BioEnterprises were consultants to HBV as discussed later in this report.
41