If the FBI hadn’t shut down his illicit sober home operation in September 2014, Kenneth Bailynson on Friday insisted he would be a multi-billionaire.
The star witness in the health care fraud trial of Dr. Mark Agresti made no apologies for making millions by exploiting people struggling with addiction and said the Palm Beach psychiatrist was a willing — and critical — accomplice.
“I’m greedy,” said Bailynson, a 49-year-old former CPA. “I’m out to make as much money as humanly possible.”
More:Sober home owner Kenneth Bailynson pleads guilty in $31.3 million health care fraud scheme
More:Doctor says sober home kingpin ‘conned’ him. Prosecutors say he defrauded health insurers of $30M.
But, he said, he couldn’t do it alone. As medical director of Good Decisions Sober Living, only Agresti could write the orders for urine tests that kept the money flowing.
“It was always about the money and for Dr. Agresti it was all about the money, too,” he told a federal jury.
Unfortunately, he said, his plans to rake in even more cash during the height of South Florida’s opioid epidemic were cut short by federal agents.
The $31.3 million operation he ran out of a rundown condominium complex in West Palm Beach and the lab he established to process urine tests from those who lived there was supposed to be just a warm up, he said.
Eventually, he planned to own sober homes throughout the state and open a second lab that would be able to process hundreds of urine tests a day…
