A Boulder spinal surgeon was arrested this week after being indicted by a federal grand jury on allegations she hid more than $200,000 in personal assets in a bankruptcy scheme.
Cathleen Van Buskirk was indicted Dec. 4 on charges of bankruptcy fraud, concealment of bankruptcy assets, fraudulent transfer and concealment, and money laundering, according to court records. She was arrested Wednesday.
Federal prosecutors allege in the indictment that in 2014 and 2015, Van Buskirk “devised and intended to devise a scheme and artifice to defraud her creditors through a bankruptcy proceeding.”
They added, according to the indictment, that “it was part of the scheme that the defendant would, prior to filing bankruptcy, transfer certain assets to other persons and do so in a way that would both make it appear that the asset was no longer her property and conceal the existence of the asset from the bankruptcy trustee, bankruptcy court and her creditors.”
Van Buskirk filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Aug. 25, 2014.
The assets she failed to report, according to the indictment, included $46,000, as well as 200 U.S. silver dollars, foreign currency, gold coins and one diamond ring. Van Buskirk also transferred around $170,000 to several companies that prosecutors said she controlled even though they were registered to her sister or an employee. The indictment said Van Buskirk fabricated invoices from those companies to hide her true relationship to them.
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