A hospital chain in Florida claims in court that its payroll manager and his two companies embezzled US$5.4 million from it to help run an airline which offers flights from Trinidad and Tobago.

Promise Healthcare and 11 of its hospitals have sued Sonny Ramdeo, PayServ Tax and Ez-Jet GT, in Palm Beach County Court. It claims it hired Ramdeo eight years ago to manage payroll for its 3,500 employees in its hospitals nationwide.

Promise accuses "Sonny Ramdeo, and his companies (of) stealing over five million dollars from Promise through a sophisticated scheme of fraud and deception. Specifically, Ramdeo incorporated a company called 'PayServ Tax Inc and deceived Promise's senior management into believing that PayServ was a legitimate payroll tax processing company affiliated with the nationally known payroll processing company, Ceridian. Based on this lie, he deceived Promise into transferring millions of dollars to PayServ Tax Inc and diverted over five million dollars of Promise's money to himself and his companies," the complaint states.

"Significantly, in the past two months alone, Ramdeo stole US$5,387,000 from Promise by diverting its funds to Ez Jet. He did this by diverting money in the PayServ account that had been deposited for payment of Promise's payroll taxes to his jet charter company, EZJet GT Inc.

EZ Jet operates flights from Trinidad and Tobago to New York, USA and Toronto, Canada.

The hospitals seek damages for fraud, unjust enrichment, conversion, and civil theft and imposition of a constructive trust.

They are represented by Matthew Triggs, with Proskauer Rose, of Boca Raton.