Grand jury investigating health department issues sealed indictment

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- A state grand jury investigating allegations of so-called "ghost" employees in the Oklahoma Department of Health has issued a sealed indictment.

The indictment handed up late Tuesday is a criminal charge that will not be revealed until the defendant is arrested or appears in court.

The panel, which already has indicted three former Health Department employees, heard testimony on Tuesday from McAlester resident Rebecca Lane, the wife of former state Sen. Jim Lane. Mrs.

Lane invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination four times during the secret, three-hour proceeding.

Acting Health Department Director Jerry Regier fired Mrs. Lane in June and asked officials to hold up her husband's retirement pay. Regier contends both were on the payroll but did little or no work.

According to a report prepared for Regier by a group of former FBI agents, former Deputy Commissioner Doyle Carper, who was Mrs.

Lane's direct supervisor, was unaware of any work that she had done for the department for 21/2 years.

The report also said that Mrs. Lane took leave without pay from the department in December 1991 so she could work on a project at Eastern Oklahoma State College in Wilburton.

"In December 1993, her employee status at the Health Department was changed to active for one day and then returned to leave without pay," the report said.

The move was an attempt to circumvent regulations limiting state employees to two years on leave without pay status, the report alleged.

The panel also had questions about Mrs. Lane's work at Eastern Oklahoma State College.

Prosecutors announced in open court that Rebecca Lane had exerted her Fifth Amendment right against self- incrimination when asked: "Would you have to do something on a yearly basis or semi-yearly basis to keep your leave of absence status?"

During a second open court proceeding, prosecutors said Mrs.

Lane told the panel that her former supervisor at the college had been then college president Bill Hill, and that she had worked on a Solid Waste Management 2000 project with a woman. She invoked her Fifth Amendment protection again when asked what role the woman filled.

Mrs. Lane also declined to answer a question about a report she filed on the solid waste project and invoked her protection against self-incrimination when asked, "What you're telling us is you don't know what job you were assigned when you went back?"

Hill testified before the grand jury Monday along with Pittsburgh County Health Department administrator Michael Echelle and several other witnesses.

The report filed by former FBI agents said Echelle had "never heard of the Eastern 2000 project with which Ms. Lane was purportedly involved" and was "unaware of what, if any, services Ms. Lane had provided for the State Health Department."

Nine witnesses testified Tuesday, including Latimer County Commissioner Ronald Woodruff, former Health Department employee Carla Pirrong and LeFlore County Health Department administrator George Dowell.