DELRAY BEACH POLICE OFFICER’S MOTHER FILES LAWSUIT
WEST PALM BEACH — A judge this week ordered three years of probation and hefty fines for one of two men connected to a Delray Beach-area lab linked to kickbacks for urine tests for people in treatment and recovery for substance abuse.
Christopher Kristiansen, 27, pleaded guilty Monday in Palm Beach County Circuit Court, according to court records. Judge Jeffrey Colbath withheld adjudication and sentenced Kristiansen to the probation plus $21,832 in fines and court costs.
Kristiansen and Alex Kane, 30, who list the same address in Delray Beach as their residence, were arrested May 31.
Each was charged with aiding in patient brokering and receiving patient-brokering kickbacks. Kane faces a third charge of conspiracy to commit patient brokering. His case is pending.
The urine of those who have both drug problems and health insurance is worth millions of dollars to the operators of labs, sober homes and treatment centers.
A Palm Beach Post investigation found that insurance companies often are billed as much as $5,000 for a single urine drug screen. Although the insurers pay only a portion of that, between $1,500 and $2,000, the profits add up quickly when those dealing with addictions are tested three or more times a week.
Under Florida law, it is illegal for a lab or a health care provider either to offer or to pay a sober home or a drug-treatment center a commission, bonus or bribe for the referral of patients.
Kristiansen and Kane were booked a day after three other men also were charged in the same scheme. Mark Desimone, David Remland and Daniel Kandler were arrested on charges that they paid a man to refer urine tests from Safe Harbour Recovery Treatment Center in suburban West Palm Beach to Impact Q Testing, a Delray Beach lab. Desimone, Remland and Kandler have been business partners in IQ, the report said.
As part of Kristiansen’s sentencing Monday, he was ordered to have no contact with any of the related defendants and to do no work in the substance-abuse and recovery industry.
According to a Palm Beach County Sheriff ’s Office affidavit, Kristiansen and Kane worked for Safe Harbour and helped coordinate payments from IQ to UTC Laboratories. They allegedly received a combined total of about $183,000 in referral fees.