Cancer center executive accused of theft

GRAND FORKS, N.D. - The former chief administrative officer at a cancer center in Grand Forks is accused of stealing about $110,000 from the company.

Grand Forks police say 59-year-old Michael Fishbein was arrested on Monday in Bozeman, Mont., on a felony theft charge.

Police say Fishbein worked at Cancer Center of North Dakota, where he allegedly used employer credit cards to steal money and then issued company checks to pay the credit card bills.

Cancer Center of North Dakota says it is the state's only freestanding, independent cancer center in the state.

Grand Forks Detective Mike Flannery said Fishbein would have to go through extradition proceedings before appearing in a North Dakota courtroom. He said Fishbein may have been looking for a job in Bozeman after he was fired from the Grand Forks cancer center.

"We'd gotten a tip that he might be in that particular city (Bozeman)," Flannery said Tuesday. Fishbein was arrested without incident, he said.

Fishbein was fired in March, after the cancer center began looking into cash flow problems, Flannery said.

"We've been going through the records and doing an audit with the accounting company in the meantime," he said.

Fishbein was the administrator at the center for about a year and a half, and apparently had moved from the Minneapolis area to take the job, Flannery said.

Police said the theft did not change the charges to cancer center patients or their services.

"Everything that we found was perfectly legitimate for the company, but he was accessing the funds," Flannery said.

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