Neglect, abandonment claims filed against embattled addiction treatment empire
She was flown here from Illinois. He was flown here from Texas. They were strung out, seeking help, and fell into a confounding dystopia.
Two former clients have filed new complaints against Nathan Young and his embattled network of addiction treatment and sober living facilities, describing nightmarish scenarios where house managers sold marijuana, illicit drug use was rampant, hungry clients were told to get food stamps and expensive treatment was billed to insurers but not actually provided to patients.
None of Young’s facilities was drug-free or safe, the claims assert, charging Young and associates with negligence, neglect and abandonment of those they were supposed to shepherd toward sobriety.
The suits target Young, also known as Pablo Lopez; David Young, also known as Sancho Lopez; Apex Recovery, Commonwealth Rehab, Beach Street Rehab, Healing Path Recovery, 55 Silver, Auburn Rehab, Antioch Rehab, Elmo Detox and Cameron Park Rehab.
Neither Young nor his attorneys responded to requests for comment, which come in the wake of a string of headaches for Young and his many companies.
The state has revoked licenses for three Young-related facilities, saying they posed a threat to clients’ health and safety “due to significant non-compliance with regulatory standards, including failures to fulfill obligations, ensure client well-being and adhere to essential procedures.”
Young’s network arranged for health insurance for out-of-state clients, often through Blue Cross Blue Shield of Oklahoma, clients said. The insurer stopped paying claims in California late last year, resulting in a sudden, chaotic exodus from Young-related operations.
Young weaponizes addiction for profit, insurance giant Aetna has charged in a $40 million federal lawsuit, asserting that his businesses cycle patients from one entity to another and encourage relapse so billing cycles can start anew.
In turn, Young countersued Aetna, asserting that it greedily endangers addicts’ lives by cutting treatment short and indefinitely delaying payments. “Aetna’s practices likely contribute to increased and prolonged suffering, and even death, of enrollees suffering from addiction,” Young’s countersuit said.
Young has defended his operations, saying that they’re willing to treat homeless people, those with behavior issues, prior convictions or other law enforcement history that “fancier” providers might snub.
The vast network enrolled hundreds of clients and depended on the rental market to find places to put them. That has left a trail of lawsuits where landlords said tenants used illegal drugs and overdosed at the properties; yelled, screamed, fought and raced cars around neighborhoods; and some landlords suffered large losses via property damage and unpaid rent.
Broken neck
Marijuana was in plentiful supply at the facilities, Kyle Witt’s suit said. Supervision and structured programming, however, were not.
“Drug and alcohol consumption was a daily occurrence at each of its facilities,” the suit said. “During what defendants referred to as ‘stabilization,’ (Witt) and other residents were not provided any medically assisted detox or monitoring whatsoever.”
In May, Witt got so stoned at one of the facilities — without any intervention from staffers — that he dove headfirst into the in-ground swimming pool and fractured his neck in three places, the suit said.
He was taken to USC Medical Center but received no follow-up care. He was never re-assessed or moved to a higher level of care, and staffers didn’t notify the state regulator of a relapse involving serious injury, which is required by law, it said.
Witt, from Texas, said he wore a C-brace for months. Addiction treatment consisted of logging onto Zoom sessions from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. each day, where he was required to make a comment (“I pet my dog to help deal with anger”), but didn’t get the tools he sought, he said. Insurers were billed thousands of dollars for these sessions, even when Witt logged on from unlicensed “sober homes,” where treatment is not supposed to be provided, his attorney said.
In late September, Witt was “abruptly terminated” from the program and tossed out onto Skid Row, “a dangerous homeless encampment in downtown Los Angeles,” with his dog, the suit said. There, he relapsed again.
“As a result of defendants’ collective negligence, he has suffered and will continue to suffer emotional, mental, psychiatric, physical injuries and damages,” the suit said.
Witt is now back in Texas, trying to pull things together. He had never been to rehab, or to California, before.
“I put all my faith in these people,” he said. “It’s depressing. I don’t know how else to put it. People should know: Don’t go there. Just don’t.”
New addiction
Kelsey Berndt knew she needed help. She wanted to return to a rehab in her home state of Illinois, but there was a waiting list.
Folks touting Young’s treatment programs in California seemed to come to the rescue. They arranged her health insurance. Bought her a plane ticket. She arrived in Los Angeles on May 20, even though her new insurance wouldn’t take effect until June 1, expecting to go straight to detox, she said.
Instead, she was taken to a “stabilization” house near USC that housed some 20 people, she said. She had a mattress on the floor in a small, dirty room behind the main house. She was sick and in withdrawal. There was no medication and no treatment but easy access to her drugs of choice; she fell further into addiction and didn’t get into detox until nearly a month after she arrived, the suit said.
“Stabilization” — apparently a holding pattern before insurance kicks in and/or a bed becomes available — doesn’t officially exist in California’s treatment pantheon, according to the state agency that licenses and certifies addiction programs.
From May to November, Berndt was shuffled to facilities in Los Angeles, Oxnard, Bakersfield, California City and back again a dozen times, “inexplicably forcing her to admit and re-admit to their owned and operated programs over 32 times,” the suit said.
Treatment again consisted of hours of Zoom sessions where people would raise their cyber hands and talk about whatever was on their minds, rather than a structured program to help them learn to manage their addictions, Berndt said.
And, though she was grappling with alcohol and meth, she was prescribed Suboxone, a medication to manage opioid addiction. This, the suit maintained, created a dependence on “synthetic heroin” and an entirely new addiction.
In early November, Young and Co. abruptly terminated her treatment and kicked her out on the street, the suit said. After a brief stay on Skid Row, she wound up at a treatment program in Anaheim.
“I definitely went through the ringer,” she said. “It was an awful experience.”
Some events took place at homes that are unlicensed and unregulated (sober homes are, by definition, simple collections of like-minded people rather than actual treatment programs), but attorney Karen Gold argues that, here, they are essentially one and the same.
Young’s companies provided licensable treatment services at unlicensed homes, and billed insurers for them, she said.
“You sit them in front of a screen and say, ‘Here is your program’ — you’re running unlicensed programs and guaranteeing failure,” said Gold, who has been handling rehab-related cases for many years.
“You’re taking these people, giving them hope, promising things you cannot deliver,” Gold said. “That’s the infuriating part to me.”