Owner of sham rehabs jailed

He used drugs as bribes, swindled insurance firms

Desperate drug addicts came to the Boynton Beach sober homes to kick their habits and recover. Instead, those who were insured were encouraged to indulge in what they had come to escape.

Their relapses triggered extended stays and referrals for bogus testing and treatment, which earned Albert Jones Saye kickback and bribe money, federal prosecutors said.

Saye, who owned the now-defunct sober homes No Drug Zone, Carter Care Recovery and A T Way, on Thursday was sentenced to more than five years in federal prison to be followed by three years of supervised release.

The 27-year-old, in a federal courtroom in West Palm Beach, also was ordered to pay more than $2 million in restitution for his involvement in a massive health care fraud scheme that swindled 36 insurance compa-

nies from 2014 to 2016.

Saye sometimes even gave drugs to his sober-home clients. And he funneled more than 100 of them — in exchange for kickbacks — to Reflections, an illicit Margate treatment center, for unnecessary urine and saliva tests, drug treatment and random drug testing, prosecutors said.

Reflections was owned by Kenneth Chatman, considered the ringleader of the scheme. He also operated treatment centers and sober homes in Broward and Palm Beach counties. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced last May to 271⁄2 years in prison for providing drugs to addicts to keep them vulnerable, prostituting women for his own financial gain and raiding their health insurance to pay for sham treatment.

To further the scheme, Saye, Chatman and other coconspirators recruited and bribed people with medical insurance to reside in sober homes. The bribes included free or reduced rent, money and drugs, prosecutors said.

In an ongoing crackdown on nefarious halfway houses and drug treatment centers, Delray Beach police on Thursday arrested a woman who operated two homes in the city called Life Change Recovery, a police report said.

Betsy Dieujuste, 36, of Boca Raton, faces 34 patient-brokering charges for allegedly steering her residents to London Treatment Center in West Palm Beach, the report said. The two owners of London Treatment Center were arrested in July.

Dieujuste, also listed as a registered agent of A Way and Means sober home in Delray Beach, received payoffs from the treatment center’s owners for her referrals. From February through May of 2017, she received $60,000, the report said.

And as incentive for the residents she recruited to the treatment center, Dieujuste would reduce weekly rent from $150 to $50, police said.