‘Devastated our lives’: Former employees unaware they worked for businessman who plead guilty to AHCCCS fraud

The Brief

  • Three people who used to work for an unlicensed health care facility in the Phoenix area are voicing their frustrations over what had happened.
  • The owner of the facility, James Demasi, pleaded guilty in March 2024 to fraudulent schemes and illegal control of an enterprise on behalf of two treatment centers.
  • “This man has effectively ruined some of our lives,” one of the former workers said.

PHOENIX In a follow-up to a story we brought you in April, we are taking a deeper look into a Phoenix area businessman who ran an unlicensed health care facility out of a Phoenix motel that was used for clients trying to get sober.

The clinics that they were transported to daily, however, defrauded Arizona’s Medicaid agency for millions of dollars.

The backstory:

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