Flophouse Operators Admit They Took Kickbacks For Drug Treatment Scam

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By Josh Nathan-Kazis February 16, 2018

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 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.

Contact Josh Nathan-Kazis at [email protected] or on Twitter, @joshnathankazis.

Josh Nathan-Kazis is a staff writer for the Forward. He covers charities and politics, and writes investigations and longform.

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