The FBI arrested a Santa Ana man March 30 after he was suspected of accepting kickbacks from sober living homes in a process known as “body brokering.”
Darius Jarell Moore, 27, was charged with one count of solicitation and receipt of payment, a federal charge, for referring a patient into a recovery home or clinical treatment facility.
According to the criminal complaint filed with the U.S. District Court, Moore received hundreds of thousands of dollars from various Orange County sober living facilities using a shell company called Moore Recovery Solutions LLC in Santa Ana.
The affidavit outlines the process Moore allegedly took to rake in money.
Moore is alleged to have found substance abusers and referred them to corrupt sober living facilities, where the facilities received an insurance check for each new patient. The homes would then share part of their profit with Moore for allegedly referring the patient.
Last October, Moore allegedly accepted a $16,000 kickback from a corrupt sober living home that was sent to a bank account under the name of Moore Recovery Solutions.
The affidavit said Moore received more than $350,000 in illegal kickbacks for his patient recruiting scheme.
To cover the fraud up from authorities, Moore used his shell company to disguise the payments as consulting services, the affidavit detailed.
“The facilities and the patient brokers understand that it is illegal to pay patient brokers on a per-patient basis, so they have devised structures to disguise the payments, including making the payments in cash, or by creating sham contracts and invoices that allege the patient broker is providing hourly services, such as consulting or counseling, to prospective patients and their families,” the affidavit said.
Moore was also consensually recorded during a phone call with a sober living home employee, where he allegedly discussed receiving kickback payments for the brokered patients.
Investigators issued a search warrant on Moore’s residence, vehicle, and cell phone last December, where they said they found marketing agreements between two sober living facilities and Moore’s shell business.
No evidence has yet to be found to suggest Moore’s company was a legitimate marketing service.
Patients getting placed into the homes were also getting paid—and some asked Moore to be put in the programs, the affidavit said.
Given that the Eliminating Kickbacks in Recovery Act, a federal statute, was only passed by Congress in 2018, Moore is the second person in Southern California to face charges for violating the law.
He faces up to 10 years in federal prison if convicted on all charges.
So far, the sober living homes that allegedly gave kickbacks to Moore are not being prosecuted.
Ciaran McEvoy, spokesperson for the United States Attorney’s Office, would not comment to The Epoch Times on why the sober living homes were not being prosecuted.
