LIKE any smooth-talking Californian businessman, Casey Mahoney is not one to sell himself short.
Describing himself as a “musician, athlete, and prevention speaker”, the rehab tycoon boasts that the secret to his decades of success in the industry is never touching a drop of alcohol or drugs in his life.
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It was a shock, then, when the 48-year-old was found guilty of nearly a dozen felonies late last year, after paying nearly $3million to so-called ‘body brokers’ to prey on recovering addicts, drive them back off the rails and through the doors of his Los Angeles clinics.
The Los Angeles resident is the most prolific profiteer of this scheme, known as kickbacks, to date after his centres netted $25million in two years. Now he faces up to 135 years in prison.
Due for sentencing this month, Mahoney’s shocking crimes shine a light on the predatory drug underworld plaguing Hollywood, which has come under renewed scrutiny following the death of tragic Friends star Matthew Perry.
Found floating face down in the hot tub of his Los Angeles home, the 54-year-old’s sad passing in 2023 has since led to five arrests, including so-called ‘Ketamine Queen’ Jasveen Sangha.
Now a Sun investigation has found these individuals are just the tip of the iceberg in a multi-million dollar criminal operation that targets struggling celebs and feeds their addiction for profit – even as they try to get clean.
Most shockingly, it is not just unscrupulous drug pushers behind this hidden crime wave, but powerful rehab corporations paying shadowy mercenaries to fill their beds with rich clients.
Known as ‘body brokers’, these shameless criminals can make up to $1million (£790,000) a year and will stop at nothing to hit their targets – including plying celebs with hard drugs so they fall off the wagon.
We are told they even infiltrate addiction groups, like Narcotics and Alcoholics Anonymous, where they deal drugs and fake friendships with celebrities and addicts for their own gain.
“I’ve seen body brokers at AA meetings, conferences, you name it,” says Nick Matthews, co-founder of treatment centre Stillwater Behavioural Health.
“They go there to find people and of course, celebrities are a big target for them because of how much they could earn.”
This exploitation was “shrouded in secrecy” until September when recovering addict Kelly Osbourne sounded the alarm.
“Body brokers will sit outside of AA meetings looking for weak and vulnerable people that they encourage to go and relapse so they can then take you off again,” she said in the documentary Matthew Perry & the Secret Celebrity Drug.
When doubts were cast about her claims, Kelly doubled down and stated: “I swear on everything that is true, and it’s heartbreaking.”
Perry died in October 2023 after becoming addicted to ketamine and those arrested include two doctors who allegedly supplied $55,000 of drugs in one month.
The star’s live-in assistant Kenneth Iwamasa admitted passing the drugs on to him and pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute ketamine causing death.
Jasveen Sangha, who is set to be tried in August, is also alleged to have sold $11,000 worth of ketamine to the star through his ‘friend’, Erik Fleming.
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Brianna Jaynes, who became a victim of body brokers while battling heroin addiction, says celebrities are prime targets.
“It’s on a bigger scale with celebrities. No one admits to being a body broker but they could be a star’s manager, agent, friend, family member or really anybody that’s connected to them,” the nurse, 29, from Buffalo, New York, tells us.
“Celebrities can be easily manipulated into believing a person is ‘good’ and ‘cares about them’ when actually they are getting them hooked on drugs to profit from that.
“They use the embarrassment and stigma to coerce and extort the celebrities.
“Some may threaten to leak photos or information. They may tell them: ‘I know a centre you can go to right now, all you have to do is 21 days there and I won’t say a word.’
“Others expose them to a substance and leak it to the press so that a narrative builds up that the celebrity needs help. Then they offer rehabs they are getting paid by as an option, promising privacy and protection.”
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‘Kickbacks’ of $2.9m
The dark world of body brokers will be in the spotlight later this month when Mahoney, who ran two rehabs in Orange County, is sentenced after paying $2.9million to the crooks.
It’s a chilling trade that targets drug addicts of all ages to capitalise on their insurance policies – but especially celebrities, who have ‘unlimited chances’ in rehab and often pay out of their own pocket to keep their problems out of the spotlight.
Brianna claims she was coerced into moving between 24 treatment centres in six months, with each ‘broker’ taking a slice of the $100,000 that her insurance provider paid to rehabs.
“Body brokers are everywhere,” she tells us. “They are on the streets of Florida and California, where all the rehab facilities are, and they have flooded social media too.
“They will go into AA meetings, some of these meetings are huge with hundreds of people there, and they will bring drugs and sell them outside.
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“They played a big role in inhibiting my recovery many times by offering me drugs or substances to go to another facility. They regularly poach clients and sometimes offer addicts a cut of their pay.
“To get into facilities, they claim they are abusing substances and scout for people, who they then befriend and some become romantically involved with them.
“Then they convince them and their group to leave for another centre that they get paid by.”
‘Insane’ pay cheques
Brianna, who has investigated the shameful practice for her podcast Recovery Uncovered, tells us the pay cheques for body brokers are “insane”.
During her research, she says she met someone who earned £$7,000-a-week from placing two people in a rehab centre and claims those at the top of the chain can make up to $1million a year.
She believes celebrities are the ‘ultimate prize’ for body brokers due to the amount of money they can make from them and says they will go to extreme lengths to get them.
Body brokers are everywhere. They are on the streets of Florida and California, where all the rehab facilities are, and they have flooded social media too
Brianna Jaynes, body broker victim
Brianna says: “These people have insane insurance policies, so while mine might run out after the 10th centre, somebody with a gold standard insurance [policy] is never going to run out.
“There is probably no limit to how many times they can cycle that person in and out of facilities, and a lot of times celebrities will pay out of pocket.”
‘Woefully unethical’
Seven years ago, there was a crackdown on body brokers’ work thanks to the Eliminating Kickbacks in Recovery Act of 2018.
The act tackles fraud and abuse within the addiction treatment industry and can lead to a maximum $200,000 fine, 10 years in prison, or both.
In 2021, a large-scale investigation led to the arrest of 10 individuals in California, including Mahoney. All allegedly used body brokers and at least four have pleaded guilty so far.
News of the crackdown was welcomed by many, including Nick Matthews, founder of treatment programme Stillwater Behavioural Health, who says body brokers and kickbacks were rife.
“It was woefully unethical, but for a time it was common practice for some rehabs and went on at such a high level,” he tells us.
Nick was approached multiple times by body brokers, who labelled themselves ‘marketers’ or ‘business managers’.
In certain programmes, if you pay enough they won’t taper you off and essentially give you a replacement addiction instead
Nick Matthews, Stillwater Behavioural Health founder
He said: “I’d get cold calls offering to ‘fill my beds for a flat fee’, it was clear they were incentivising people to go to centres and were soliciting like it was a normal business.
“‘You pay me $20,000 a month and I’ll fill your beds, just don’t ask how’ – that would be their approach and they did horrible things to get clients.
“If a rehab wanted celebrities, who pay astronomical prices like $150,000 to $200,000 per month, they would hire a ‘business manager’ (a body broker) and give them 10 per cent of the earnings.”
Turning down the body brokers’ offers led to some of them infiltrating Nick’s facilities, faking addiction issues then leaving “against medical advice with two other clients” days later.
He said: “I found out they had a conversation, ‘Why not leave here, I’ll give you $1,000 and book you into this place?’ Often it would be popsicle treatment centres with programmes that have no substance.”
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Dr Sarah Boss, Clinical Director at The Balance Rehab Clinic in London, tells us body brokers don’t operate in Europe but cunning dealers will stop at nothing.
She recalls: “At one centre I used to work at, we had a beautiful clinic with a fence around the garden therapy section.
“We noticed our clients were acting strange sometimes and some were relapsing, at first we couldn’t understand why.
“But then we noticed there was a hole in the fence. There were people out there selling drugs and alcohol, it’s horrible to think of but it does happen.”
Dr Boss says it “could be very easy” for dealers to bribe rehab workers, get them to sell drugs or convince celebrities to transfer to other centres but thankfully she’s not experienced it.
Addiction peddlers
Crooked centres are also a problem with some willing to “sell their souls” by fulfilling celebrities’ illegal demands.
Some have used drones to have weed delivered and others pay doctors for drugs or alcohol, essentially allowing them “to do whatever they want”, Nick claims.
“For example, we give valium to people with alcohol dependency to alleviate withdrawal symptoms and stop seizures, and then safely taper them off.
“But in certain programmes, if you pay enough they won’t taper you off and essentially give you a replacement addiction instead.
“There’s a special place in hell for those individuals, if you’re not helping your patients you’re like a cancer doctor giving a lung cancer patient cigarettes.”
Mahoney will be sentenced later this month after been found guilty of conspiracy related to offering illegal remunerations for patient referrals, seven counts of illegal remunerations for patient referrals and three counts of money laundering.
Now Nick is looking forward to this evil trade finally being exposed.
He tells us: “Celebrities don’t want everybody to know that they were in rehab, so the rehabs have this shroud of secrecy where they can do whatever they want.
“They know they won’t be held accountable because celebrities are unlikely to go and tell anybody what happened.
“They don’t want everybody to know so it’s a perfect recipe for an environment of extremely unethical behaviour and that is truly heartbreaking.”
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