Lexington, KY – A federal grand jury has indicted several individuals associated with a sober-living home for allegedly billing federally funded health programs over $20 million for medically unnecessary drug tests. The indictment, released by the U.S. Department of Justice, names four defendants: Delores Jordan, 56, of Charlotte, N.C.; her son Deshawn Dawkins, 33, of Lexington; Jordan’s boyfriend Jerome Davis, 51, of Indianapolis; and Ernest Williams, 51, of Lexington.
The accusations center around Serenity Keepers LLC, a sober-living facility owned by Jordan in Lexington, which provided support services to individuals recovering from substance-use disorders. The sober home employed peer support specialists, including Dawkins and Williams, who assisted residents. However, the indictment claims that Jordan began soliciting kickbacks for drug testing referrals in August 2019, engaging in deceptive practices involving Medicaid and Medicare.
Specifically, the indictment alleges that Jordan coordinated payments totaling $1,300 every two weeks to Dawkins for urine samples sent to testing laboratories. By October 2021, this amount rose to $5,000 per biweekly payment due to the volume of tests conducted. Additionally, payments of $5,000 every two weeks were also demanded from Davis’s company, X-Tremly for Christ LLC.
Furthermore, the indictment states that Jordan enlisted a physician to endorse fraudulent order forms for drug testing that lacked medical necessity. Billing was reportedly improper because the drug tests were not conducted for valid medical diagnosis or treatment but instead aimed at monitoring sobriety compliance under the sober-living facility’s rules.
Between August 2019 and March 2022, Serenity Keepers allegedly caused approximately $20 million in unnecessary drug testing charges to Medicaid and an additional $670,000 to Medicare. Besides health care fraud, the indictment includes charges of conspiracy to commit health care fraud against Jordan, Dawkins, and Williams, while Jordan, Dawkins, and Davis also face kickback conspiracy charges.
If convicted, Jordan, Dawkins, and Williams could face up to 10 years in prison, while Davis could be sentenced to 5 years behind bars. The indictment was returned on November 7 but had initially been sealed.
This situation raises concerns about the integrity of sober-living homes and their potential exploitation of health care programs designed to assist genuine recovery efforts. The case underscores the need for vigilance in monitoring such facilities to protect against fraud in federally funded health care services.
