Arizona AG’s office secured 188 sober living indictments; victims say charges don’t bring justice
Local perspective:
In 2024, FOX 10 reported on a class-action lawsuit filed against AHCCCS and the state’s Department of Health. There are an estimated 7,000 Native American plaintiffs suing for wrongful death and gross negligence. The lawsuit alleges that both AHCCCS and DHS turned a blind eye, allowing bad actors to exploit vulnerable people for billions of dollars by offering behavioral health services never rendered.
Randi Honyumptewa is a mom who wanted help for her alcohol addiction and stayed at a so-called sober-living home in Phoenix. Instead of getting clean, her mother says the staff enabled her drinking problem.
“As far as I know, she’s been drinking heavily there at the facility and I guess one morning or Christmas Eve, she had a hangover of some sort, and she wanted something to, where the pain of her headache or whatever, and the manager that was there gave her fentanyl,” Evelyn Williams, Randi Honyumptewa’s mother, said.
After taking that pill, Randi went into cardiac arrest, her mother says, leading to a traumatic brain injury. She is now incapacitated and requires constant care.
“They said she has 95% brain damage, so she’s unable to talk. But when we do see her, she sounds like she’s in pain of some sort,” Williams said.
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Sober living scandal: Native American woman incapacitated after being given fentanyl by staff, lawsuit says
A class-action lawsuit claims Arizona ignored exploitation and harm to natives in sober living facilities. It includes an allegation of a staff member giving fentanyl to an alcoholic, causing incapacitation.
According to the lawsuit, the manager of that sober-living home identified Vestine Mukarukundo as Randi’s doctor. It is a name already known. Vestine was one of 10 people indicted in an alleged patient brokering scheme. She and her co-defendants are accused of running unlicensed sober-living homes.
Investigators with the attorney general’s office say the group agreed to send 75 clients to a fake behavioral health facility. The alleged kickback? 300 bucks per person, every week.
Now, Vestine runs a tax accounting company. A stop was made by her office to see if she wanted to discuss her case, but she was not available. Her next court hearing is set for November.
Families are also speaking out, including the family of Kecia Ramos, a missing Native American woman who hasn’t been seen for two years. Her cousin says Kecia’s twin sister was recruited and picked up in a white van on tribal land to go to a sober-living home in Phoenix.
“She then was told that if she brought on any newcomers, that they would provide her with $200 cash. So, anybody that she brought in, they were getting paid $200 for human head. With the promises that they would get treatment, because she was addicted, so that she would get treatment and was promised all these things that were not true,” said Savanna Howard, Kecia Ramos’ cousin.
The backstory:
Kecia and her twin were shuffled through different facilities, and ultimately ended up at Thomas Suites in Phoenix.
FOX 10 has extensively reported on this former motel which operated as an unlicensed treatment center that housed nearly 150 Native Americans. Conditions inside have been described as “deplorable.” Per state health officials, clients living at Thomas Suites were shuttled to a behavioral health facility called New Life Wellness multiple times a week.
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Phoenix motel used as unlicensed health care center tied to clinic convicted of AHCCCS fraud
FOX 10 Investigator Justin Lum is uncovering how an unlicensed treatment facility operated out of a Phoenix motel with ties to a multi-million-dollar fraud case.
James Demasi ran Thomas Suites and owned New Life Wellness centers. But in 2023, he pleaded guilty to fraudulent schemes and illegal control of an enterprise on behalf of New Life Wellness. That is key because on paper, the company was convicted of fraud, not Demasi.
As part of the plea deal, Demasi agreed to pay $25 million in restitution. But AHCCCS records show his clinics made $80 million in nine years before the state cut them off due to allegations of fraud.
Even after the Department of Health hit Thomas Suites with the cease-and-desist order, the facility continued operating as a re-entry program for parolees until it closed in 2025. Savanna Howard says there is only one way to describe what happened to Kecia.
