LAKE WORTH: Kenny Chatman Story
A sober home operator linked to prostitution and fraud is among six people arrested and charged Wednesday in a wide-ranging health-care fraud scheme that details the sordid underbelly of the drug treatment industry as exposed in stories by The Palm Beach Post over the past year.
Kenny Chatman, 46, of Boynton Beach is one of six people named in a federal complaint alleging a scheme to file fraudulent insurance claim forms and license applications to defraud insurance companies, federal officials said.
But it is the details in the complaint alleging how Chatman operated that exposes how ugly the recovery industry has become in Palm Beach County. Among the allegations: Pimping out drug addicts at his sober homes while allowing them to continue using drugs — all of it enabling Chatman and others to soak insurance companies.
Wherehab had a private interview with one of Kenny’s old clients who claimed “Kenny Chatman had sex with his girlfriend who was also a client. The center did sometimes have rules but the halfway house he lived at was receiving direct kickbacks from Chatman.”
Since then Chatman has been prosecuted and has agreed to pay back more than 16 million in fraudulent treatment billing.
“The saga of Kenny Chatman, a symbol of South Florida’s largely corrupt drug treatment industry, will be featured Monday on the CNBC true-crime series American Greed.”
Unfortunately, Kenny Chatman has painted a very dark image on treatment centers in Florida. There are a lot of quality programs that hurt due to his actions. People being used and manipulated at their most vulnerable! Sexual trafficking is horrific enough, but to bill someone’s insurance while you do it, is just heartbreaking.
this is pretty sad in a way to help people with a disease I hope they get a lot of time in prison whoever is in charge of this house this is not a way to help
That guy should be locked up, and for a long while He has stolen hundreds of thousands from patients, and insurance fraud is enormous. How did he get a license considering he”s a felon over and over? This is very sad. It’s a disease, and no one can call it anything else.