Jewish Operators of drug rehab house forced addicts to relapse in order to keep business going

The Jewish Daily Forward

Two Brooklyn “three-quarters” house operators pled guilty in New York on Wednesday to defrauding Medicaid by sending residents to rehab treatments, regardless of whether they were actually addicted to drugs.

“Yury Baumblit and Rimma Baumblit lined their pockets by preying on our most vulnerable New Yorkers,” New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, whose office brought the charges, said in a statement.

Yury Baumblit’s scheme was the subject of a 2015 New York Times exposé. The Times reported that Baumblit had forced drug addicts to relapse and then enroll in a costly treatment program, or else be thrown out onto the streets.

In their guilty pleas, the Baumblits admitted that they had received $1.5 million in kickbacks for sending residents to Medicaid-sponsored rehab programs.