Jan. 12—South St. Paul boys basketball coach Matthew McCollister resigned Wednesday, just hours before he was expected to plead guilty to a felony criminal charge at the federal courthouse in St. Paul.

McCollister was scheduled to appear at an arraignment hearing before U.S. District Judge Wilhelmina Wright on a charge that he conspired to commit health care fraud while working as a personal injury attorney.

However, the hearing had to be postponed after McCollister's attorney, Ryan Pacyga, notified the court shortly before its 1 p.m. start that they could not make it because Pacyga was ill, according to the judge's assistant.

The court rescheduled the hearing to Jan. 19.

McCollister, 41, of Mendota Heights, is accused of playing a role in a scheme to rip off car insurance companies with bogus medical claims in Minnesota and elsewhere in 2016 and 2017.

Federal prosecutors on Dec. 8 charged McCollister by felony information, a process by which a defendant agrees to waive a grand jury indictment and instead plead guilty. Pacyga said this week that McCollister would enter a guilty plea Wednesday.

Sentencing guidelines call for 10 to 16 months in prison, Pacyga said.

TEAM MOVES FORWARD

McCollister has coached South St. Paul since 2019, turning around a struggling program. Last season, the Packers fell a game short of the state tournament. They now are among the top-ranked teams in Class 3A.

On Wednesday morning, McCollister emailed his resignation letter to the human resources director for South St. Paul schools.

Upon a guilty plea, McCollister would have faced immediate termination from the school district under its employee policy.

As far as who now will be coaching the undefeated Packers (11-0), Chad Sexauer, the high school's athletics director, said in an emailed statement to the Pioneer Press:

"As a district, we have developed a plan to have coaching coverage at all basketball practices and games. Also, the current basketball coaching staff will continue to handle and perform duties as they have throughout this basketball season. We look forward to continued success with our student athletes for the remainder of the season."

The Packers' next game is Friday night at Hastings.

Since August, McCollister also has worked at the high school as a full-time student support assistant, which is a paraeducator job. In that role, McCollister worked with student-support specialists who focus on student behavior.

According the school district, McCollister's coaching stipend for this season was supposed to be $6,628. He was paid just over $19 an hour during his time as a student support assistant.

WHAT HE IS ACCUSED OF

According to the federal charge, McCollister and unnamed others conspired to defraud auto insurers on policies provided pursuant to the state's no-fault insurance law.

According to Pacyga, prosecutors allege McCollister hired "runners" to recruit clients who were supposedly injured in car crashes. The same runners would work with chiropractors who would fraudulently bill auto insurance companies for those clients' care, taking advantage of the no-fault insurance law.

In March 2016, according to Pacyga, McCollister asked a "runner," who was really an undercover agent, to find people who purportedly had been injured in car accidents and bring them to a chiropractor for treatment. "I mean, they had him up on a wire in a St. Paul restaurant talking about those sorts of things," Pacyga said.

It is a state, not federal, crime for an attorney to work with runners. What got McCollister prosecuted in U.S. District Court was drafting a letter to an insurance company or companies demanding payment for chiropractic care that he knew was unnecessary, Pacyga said.

Also last month, a state agency that polices the behavior of Minnesota lawyers recommended that McCollister be disbarred for professional misconduct in 2019 and 2020, including that he misappropriated client funds. McCollister opened his personal injury law firm in March 2015.

Besides South St. Paul, McCollister's coaching résumé includes starts and stops at Breck, St. Croix Preparatory Academy and Brooklyn Center.

Jace Frederick contributed to this report.