Table of Content
- UPDATE: Sober home task force arrests six; total now tops 40
- Sign up for the South Florida Sports Headlines Newsletter and receive up to date information.
- Palm Beach County State Attorney announces arrests in major drug treatment fraud case
- Homeless shelters preparing for more people as cold front rolls into SWFL
- Palm Beach Task Force Raids More Sober Home Owners
- More sober home arrests in Palm Beach County
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.
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.
UPDATE: Sober home task force arrests six; total now tops 40
Investigators obtained messages from Dave’s Facebook account and found “countless pages of airline tickets,” Uber rides and other services to entice addicts, according to court records. The brothers, owners of The Treatment Professionals, accepted 34 checks totaling $185,904 for enrolling residents at their sober in treatment programs at Chapters Recovery, formerly Good Future Recovery, according to court records. Many of those who have not pleaded are treatment center owners and other major players — some facing dozens of counts of patient brokering. It is not yet known how many of those cases — if any — will proceed to trial.

If you are approached by police officers, they are often in an investigatory mindset. In the first eight months of this year, more than 400 people have died of opiod-related overdoses in Palm Beach County. Swanson's and Gaver's arrests are among 120 made by the Palm Beach County Sober Homes Task Force since it began work in October 2016, the State Attorney's Office said.
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Adam Adler directed South Florida addiction treatment facilities and sober homes that he owned to send patients' urine for urinalysis testing in exchange for more than $1 million in kickbacks. Toni Marie Lucca, 55, of Delray Beach, also arrested Thursday, faces nine counts of patient brokering. According to police reports, Lucca received $7,900 from Tomasso for referring residents from her sober home, Pura Vida, to Tomasso’s treatment centers.

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.
Palm Beach County State Attorney announces arrests in major drug treatment fraud case
LaFrance, 25, came to Florida several years ago for treatment, according to her mother. LaFrance pleaded guilty to four counts of patient brokering and one count of attempted patient brokering. She was sentenced to 18 months of probation and must cooperate with investigators.
In Florida, Palm Beach Sober Home Task Force carried out a series of raids on shady sober homes earlier this month. On February 9, the sober homes task force arrested James Tomasso, the owner of three Palm Beach County drug treatment facilities Wednesday. Court documents say that Tomasso faces 25 counts of patient brokering.
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.

David Felton is facing charges of murder and attempted murder. Anderson, 38, offered free rent to residents of his West Palm Beach sober home, Anastasia’s Way, contingent on their attendance at London Treatment Center, also in West Palm Beach, court records show. Vandervert, 29, of Hollywood, received $3,335 for residents from his Lake Worth sober home, Saje House, that he enrolled in Whole Life Recovery. Together with their daughter, Irene Manko, they were paid $200,000 in kickbacks for referring patients to a Lake Park laboratory, Coastal Laboratory, LLC, for urine testing, according to a Task Force investigation. The Sober Homes Task Force was created in 2016 to crack down on sober homes and medical facilities that engage in illegal activity.
She will have no felony conviction if she successfully completes probation. Arrested Dec. 2 on 8 counts of patient brokering and 5 counts of aiding patient brokering. As co-owner of Saved by Grace, a sober home in Delray Beach, LaFrance deposited $6,750 in 13 checks from Whole Life Recovery for case-management services, according to court records. John Dudek, a 55-year-old tattoo artist from Delray Beach, has been arrested twice on aiding patient brokering charges. In both cases, Dudek received $450 for each addict with insurance that he enrolled from his sober home, Southern Palms Oasis to Whole Life Recovery. On the same even of Tommoso’s arrest, in Boyton Beach, Florida a husband and wife team who operate a drug treatment center and sober homes were arrested for what authorities describe as a payment scam.

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.
He will have no felony record if he successfully completes probation. Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg announced the arrests of 15 people in a multi-state drug treatment fraud investigation on Tuesday. They face 206 felony counts of patient brokering and conspiracy.
