Category Archives: Substance Abuse
Former deputy, state House candidate faces patient brokering charges
A former Palm Beach County sheriff’s deputy who left to open a West Palm Beach drug treatment center was arrested Tuesday on 15 counts of patient brokering. Robert “Bobby” Simeone, 46, owner of Epiphany’s Treatment Center and an unsuccessful 2016 candidate for state House, was the latest person arrested by the State Attorney’s Sober Home… Read More »
Accidental injury rises to third leading cause of death in the U.S.
For the first time since records have been kept, preventable injuries have become the third leading cause of death in the United States, the National Safety Council (NSC) announced Wednesday. In fact, data shows that preventable deaths rose 10 percent in 2016. The increase was largely due to an uptick in fatal motor vehicle… Read More »
Notorious treatment center operator Chatman gets 27 years in prison
WEST PALM BEACH — Kenneth “Kenny” Chatman was a relatively small drug-treatment provider despite the millions he raked in every year, Assistant U.S. Attorney Marie Villafaña said Wednesday. But he was “the most dangerous,” she told U.S. District Court Judge Donald Middlebrooks, and FBI agents “never worked harder” than the last few months of 2016,… Read More »
Woman on Chatman: ‘Men came in and paid him money to rape me.’
Kenny Chatman kept a 19-year-old woman tied down in a house, where more than 100 men raped her, a woman wrote to U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks on Monday. The corrupt drug treatment center operator, who faces up to life in prison when sentenced today, held her for weeks, until she jumped out of… Read More »
Two years after FBI raids, no indictments against sober home operators
Two years ago this morning, FBI agents descended on Good Decisions Sober Living, a rundown sober housing complex in West Palm Beach in search of evidence of insurance fraud, patient brokering and money laundering. In large portions of the county’s $1 billion recovery industry, hopes ran high that the exploitation of addicts for insurance… Read More »
Relapsed and forced out, sober home residents die in motels
Addicts who relapse while living in sober homes in Delray Beach, often are dumped into seedy motels, often still high. Without supervision, some continue the binge, overdose and die. That’s because Delray Beach, nationally known as a treatment destination, forbids sober home operators from immediately evicting addicts who have relapsed, a policy that sober… Read More »
After losing her daughter to fake drug ‘treatment,’ she now seeks to save others
MAY 10, 2017 FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA.—Five days after losing her daughter to a drug overdose in a South Florida sober home, Jennifer Flory found herself standing before a task force set up to investigate sober homes. “My daughter passed away on Thursday night and I’m coming here to get her stuff – and her – and… Read More »
‘Finally,’ Scott declares opioid epidemic a public health emergency
Responding to months of public outcry, Gov. Rick Scott declared a public health emergency Wednesday in the fight against the opioid epidemic, a sea change in what had been a hands-off approach by state officials to a crisis that has killed thousands. “Today I feel relief — relief that the voices of so many… Read More »
Sober home cleanup bill on path to OK after dangling all week
With a heavy dose of local lobbying, the bill to crack down on bad sober homes survived a key calendar call Wednesday to make it to the Senate floor Thursday. It must pass the Senate twice before lawmakers stop hearing bills on Friday. Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg, whose task force shaped… Read More »
