Judge to Winona therapy swindler: Pay back $192,000

WINONA, Minn. – A former Winona mental health counselor, Kristine Ann Radloff Hollund, was ordered to repay $192,000 that she swindled with fake claims for services to patients. Hollund also was placed on five years probation and ordered to 120 hours of community service. Hollund, age 60, owned Athena counseling, which most recently operated out of the Winona Knitting Mills office building. She since has relocated to Volusia County, Florida, again as a mental health counselor. In Minnesota, state fraud investigators accused Hollund of filing more than1,000 claims for unprovided or fraudulent services over three years from 2016 to 2019.

Messy practices

Hollund pleaded guilty in Winona County court to two counts of aiding and abetting theft by swindle. Four other counts were dismissed. During at least part of the period of fraudulent claims, Hollund’s state license as a mental health counselor had been revoked. The Board of Behavioral Health and Therapy said she had a sexual relationship with a patient, an ethics violation  even though she later married the man. During suspension, the Board said, Hollund continued to provide services or contracted other therapists to do so.

Mother-daughter

Earlier this year Hollud’s daughter, Brittany Lindner, was ordered to help pay back the money too. Linder, age 36, was Athenas chief financial officer, manager and biller. Investigators said the frauluent bills were filed not under Hollund’s provider number but a wrong number or had no supporting documentation that the claimed services had even been  provided. Investigators also reported these incriminating statements from Linder to her mother:

> June 2018: “I am having to doctor so much on these documents and re-write ones with your name on them. I’m so tired.”

> December 2018: “Do you think telling them that I submit the claims is safe. I don’t know if I want to be charged with fraud.”

Getting tripped up

The Medicaid Fraud Control Unit of the state attorney general’s office, which brought the charges, cited this example of fraud:  A client whom Hollund had seen regularly moved away in January 2018. Athena kept filing claims for services.