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Fowler, who claimed on his Facebook page that he is a recovering addict, was sentenced to three years of probation and a $15,000 fine. Assistant U.S. Attorney Nancy Winters has launched a federal case against Liberation Way who had connections with treatment centers in Florida. The Palm Beach County Sober Home Task Force has made 41 arrests on charges of patient brokering and insurance fraud since Oct. 25, 2016. The Palm Beach County State Attorney's Office said Swanson and Gaver were the first drug-treatment providers charged in the death of someone in their care based on their "reckless disregard" for the victim's well-being. Attorneys for them denied wrongdoing at the time of their arrests, saying they did not “intentionally or negligently" harm anyone.
Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg, who created the task force, has promised more arrests. According to the Palm Beach Post, Tomasso has a history of fraud that dates back to at least 2005. An ex-con, he was sentenced to three years in prison for defrauding the state’s unemployment agency. Because of Tomasso’s history, he won’t be allowed to post bail until he can prove that money to be used to get out of jail did not come from any illegal activities. The investigation concluded the money flow was in the hundreds of thousands of dollars for Pure Thoughts, which told investigators that it used the proceeds from its addiction operations for its horse rescue operation.
Owner of the Wellness Center of Palm Beach accused of patient brokering
She will serve five years in prison on the manslaughter and patient-brokering charges, with credit for the 898 days – nearly 2.5 years – she has spent in the Palm Beach County Jail awaiting trial. Once she is released, she will spend five years on probation, according to court documents. Tomasso operated Pathways 2 Recovery in Boca Raton, Inspirations Recovery in Greenacres and Acceptance Recovery Center in Delray Beach from the offices of Global Recovery Resources, another business owned by Tomasso. Norquist, 26, of Boynton Beach and his brother Patrick, 32, of Delray Beach, are charged with brokering patients from their Delray Beach sober home, The Halfway House, to Whole Life Recovery. Dave is charged with violating a statute against patient brokering. In the probable cause affidavit, a witness told authorities Dave paid residents in cigarettes and gift cards for attending therapy sessions.
PALM BEACH COUNTY, Fla. — Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg announced the arrests of 15 people in a multi-state drug treatment fraud investigation on Tuesday. Kandler, 41, was the owner of Chapters Recovery, formerly known as Good Future Recovery. According to the arrest report, Kandler paid $325,000 to three sober home operators who enrolled residents living in their sober homes in treatment programs at Chapters Recovery. On April 19, he pleaded guilty to four counts of aiding patient brokering.
UPDATE: Sober home task force arrests six; total now tops 40
Patient referrals usually come from owners and managers at sober living homes, also known as halfway houses, where addicts seeking recovery go to wait for treatment options and stay clean. The homes serve as unregulated community housing for people recovering from alcohol or drug addiction, and often don’t have staff trained in addiction. The suspects face 206 felony counts of patient brokering and conspiracy, and the investigation involves 10 treatment centers from Miami to Fort Pierce.
Palm Beach County law officials have been cracking down on operators of homes for people in recovery from substance abuse. The Palm Beach County Sober Homes Task Force is made up of multiple agencies as well as prosecutors. Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Arenberg taking a stand for the countless lives lost to corrupt sober homes and treatment facilities. Late Tuesday, the Palm Beach County State Attorney’s Office announced the formation of a new task force to investigate sober homes fraud. James Durkin was charged with 13 counts of forgery while his wife, Jaclyn Sue Durkin, was charged with two counts of forgery.
Palm Beach Sober Homes Task Force Nets More Arrests
Johnson, 45, a 1990 graduate of Wellington High School, paid referral fees to sober home operators to steer insured addicts to his treatment center, Palm Beach Recovery & Wellness in West Palm Beach. Johnson used a bank account from another company he operated, Reel Recovery, to pay referral fees to Alex Vandervert, according to court records. Vandervert pleaded guilty in April to brokering clients to Whole Life Recovery. In the past eight months, the Palm Beach County Sober Home Task Force has arrested and charged 28 owners and operators of drug treatment centers andsober homes with buying and selling insured addicts.
Prosecutors are not pursuing the four counts of aiding patient brokering. Both arrested Feb. 26 on 34 counts of aiding patient brokering. Prosecutors are pursing 12 counts against Eric 29, and one count against 26-year-old Adam. Hargrove, 41, of West Palm Beach, owner of True Sober Living on Kirk Road, allegedly accepted 11 payments for referring clients to Whole Life Recovery. Weathersbee, 37, of Lake Worth, signed attendance forms used by Whole Life to determine the referral fees paid to True Sober Living, according to court records.
Florida Task Force Arrests Sober Home Owners
Arrested June 15 on 35 counts of aiding patient brokering and one count of patient brokering. Both face 22 counts of patient brokering and aiding patient brokering. Arrested Dec. 13 on four counts of aiding patient brokering. Arrested Nov. 17 and Feb. 26 on 39 counts of aiding patient brokering.
Gaver pleaded guilty to similar charges in June 2021 and received a two-year prison sentence. The two began divorce proceedings in May, according to court records. Ehab Iskander, 33, and Howard James Fowler, 26 are also accused them of taking illegal kickbacks in exchange for referring patients to a specific substance abuse treatment center. Arrest Feb. 8 on 21 counts of patient brokering and four counts of aiding patient brokering.
The state did not press charges of conspiracy to commit racketeering and misuse of personal information. Cleef, Kosarko and Torree all died of drug overdoses there during nine months between 2017 and 2018. Muhammad, 50, of Boca Raton, worked as the admissions director at Chapters Recovery, a substance-abuse treatment facility that also did business as Good Futures Recovery in Delray Beach.
Additional conditions of his bond were redacted from the court file. Dudek pleaded guilty to 13 counts of aiding patient brokering on June 16 and was sentenced to three years of probation. As part of his plea deal, Dudek agreed to aid and testify in cases brought by the Sober Home Task Force. He cannot work in the drug treatment industry and may not discuss cases with others facing charges from Whole Life Recovery and Chapters, formerly doing business as Good Future Recovery. He will not have a felony conviction if he successfully completes probation. However, some of these operators have allegedly been referring people in their facilities to treatment centers in exchange for kickbacks — also known as patient brokering.
Some patients in these homes go completely unmonitored, leaving addicts to their own devices. Just last October, a sober home named Open Arms had two addicts overdose in the facility, just hours apart. An investigation revealed the unstaffed home was filthy, with mattresses stripped of sheets and some smeared with blood. The owner had a history of credit card fraud and other criminal enterprises.
Meanwhile, they continued to get high as their insurance agencies were billed for services never rendered. Simeone, 46, a former Palm Beach County sheriff’s deputy who left to open Epiphany Treatment Center in West Palm Beach, paid referral fees to sober home operators for each insured addict they enrolled in Epiphany. Vandervert also aided investigators in the case against Steve Johnson.
Over six months, Muhammad was connected to more than $155,000 in referral fees to the Lahr brothers and Bayne for enrolling residents at their sober homes in treatment programs at Chapters Recovery. “We’re closer to the beginning than the end,” Aronberg said of the investigation by the task force, which includes police, inspectors and agents from a dozen state and federal agencies. While the task force works on more arrests, Aronberg’s prosecutors are now faced with taking those already arrested to court. West Palm Beach police have arrested the owner of a sober home and treatment center. These facilities, also known as halfway houses or sober homes, help people who with drug or alcohol problems. They’re supposed to be referred to treatment facilities based on their individual needs.
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