Tag: Jackson Health Foundation

Charmaine Gatlin’s job was all about the money.

As the chief operating officer for the Jackson Health Foundation, Gatlin had easy access to millions of donated dollars meant for Miami-Dade County’s only public hospital system — with practically no bosses checking her spending sprees.

In November, Jackson terminated Gatlin for swindling millions of dollars from the Foundation as executives privately reeled over her betrayal of the hospital system’s fundraising arm, which raises tens of millions to benefit Jackson’s patients.

In an audit, Jackson executives discovered the extent of her brazen thievery, including spending tens of thousands of dollars on high-fashion handbags, a membership at a tony golf club for her and her husband she disguised as being for board members, a website, video and brochures to promote her daughter’s Broward traveling softball team, even paying thousands to a barbecue joint in her Georgia hometown for meals the Foundation never got.

And as the case closed in around her, she forged an email from the Foundation’s board chair to pay a Miami vendor listed as a “co-conspirator” in court records more than $70,000, according to Jackson records and her Miami federal court indictment.

The Miami Herald reviewed thousands of pages of documents in this case, from federal court records to public records the Herald obtained through the Foundation and Jackson Health System, including hundreds of Gatlin’s invoices and emails.

Jackson officials alerted federal law enforcement that Gatlin was routinely tapping into Foundation funds to pay vendors from South Florida to Georgia for completely fabricated services. Gatlin paid an Atlanta audiovisual contractor $2 million, who then kicked back $1 million to her, according to court records. The contractor did not do any work for the Foundation or Jackson.

Conspicuous among the suspicious transactions: Gatlin approved about $2.9 million in payments for more than a dozen Georgia vendors with no apparent connections to the Foundation – including the Atlanta company that paid her bribes.

Small businesses in her hometown of Riceboro, Georgia – population 935 in 2023, according to the Census – also benefitted from Gatlin’s largesse. A Riceboro barbecue spot billed the Foundation $86,070 between 2018 and mid-2020, bills that Gatlin approved, Jackson records show. The meals were invoiced as food for wellness fairs, family fun days and other Foundation events. The Foundation paid the bills; no one at the Foundation got any barbecue.

Gatlin also used Foundation funds to pay for Apple AirPods, laptops and backpacks for back-to-school events hosted by a Riceboro religious group, which had no links to the Foundation, except Gatlin.

“We strongly believe we have a duty to safeguard our resources and ensure accountability for the misuse of public funds. Jackson Health Foundation is pursuing all legal options against those involved in this carefully orchestrated embezzlement scheme,” Jackson Health CEO Carlos Migoya told the Miami Herald in an emailed statement sent Friday.

Pleads guilty to embezzling millions

Under the Foundation’s bylaws, Gatlin, hired in 2014, had nearly complete authority to approve bills of up to $100,000 without any oversight, allowing her for years to pay an inner circle of vendors for fictitious event services that were never provided to the taxpayer-subsidized Jackson Health System.

Members of the Foundation’s executive committee were so unaware of her fraudulent billing schemes that they complimented Gatlin and her team for their “great work” – eight months before she was fired.

Last November, the month she was fired, the Foundation turned over its analysis of her suspicious payments to the FBI, leading to Gatlin’s arrest in May at her Riceboro home near Savannah. The Herald obtained the analysis through a public records request.

Gatlin, 52, pleaded guilty last month to wire-fraud conspiracy and admitted in Miami federal court that she embezzled at least $4.3 million from the Foundation between 2019 and 2024.

Prosecutors are likely to argue at her upcoming sentencing that her theft was higher – somewhere between $3.5 million and $9.5 million, according to a plea agreement. They will also ask a federal judge to make Gatlin pay back the Foundation.

Foundation officials said they are still assisting prosecutors in calculating the nonprofit’s loss, and could not provide that figure to the Herald before the government makes its restitution request.

“We will seek to recover every dollar that was stolen from the Foundation, and we look forward to seeing those responsible face the consequences of their actions,” Migoya said in his statement Friday.

Gatlin and her defense lawyer, David Howard, declined to comment for this article as she awaits sentencing in November.

Fake invoices, bilks ‘restricted funds’

Jackson and court records show Gatlin approved hundreds of invoices for services and items that were never provided to the Foundation.

More than 100 times, she bilked “restricted” Foundation funds designated for specific Jackson causes, including $55,000 stipulated for burn patients. Gatlin diverted those funds to a Miami Gardens-based vendor for first-aid kits that were not officially requested by or provided to Jackson, according to her indictment.

The vendor, Darryl Holsendolph, whose company, Holsen Inc., sells merchandise such as T-shirts, bags and water bottles, declined to comment for this article because of the ongoing federal investigation. His defense lawyer, Larry Handfield, also did not comment, citing the same reason.

As one of the Foundation’s top executives, Gatlin managed its daily operations, oversaw fundraising activities and had complete control over spending. Oftentimes, however, unbeknownst to the Foundation, she was doing extensive volunteer work for her former employer, Atlanta-based 100 Black Men of America, while on the clock for the Jackson Health Foundation, according to hundreds of emails reviewed by the Herald.

Gatlin’s indictment highlights her approving more than $2 million in fraudulent Foundation payments to an Atlanta businessman, Yergan Jones, who owns an audiovisual company that provided no services to the nonprofit or Jackson Health System. In August, Jones pleaded guilty to wire-fraud conspiracy, admitting that he collaborated with Gatlin in falsifying bills and kicking back half of his Foundation payments to her.

Both knew each other from their work for 100 Black Men of America, where Gatlin had been an executive before joining the Foundation. The organization, in a statement to the Herald, said it had no knowledge of her fraud scheme at the Foundation or her illicit dealings with Jones.

Pembroke Pines event planner

Jones was not the only one alleged by the feds to be involved in Gatlin’s’s billing schemes.

On May 14, 2024, Gatlin sent a personal email to 100 Black Men of America regarding its annual conference the following month in Atlanta. She said she gave a “45K budget” to Premier Choice Group, a Pembroke Pines event-planning company.

Three days later – around 6 p.m. on May 17 – Gatlin received an email from Premier Choice CEO Shanae Hill. In the email: a $40,257.76 invoice for social media marketing and event photography services.

But Hill’s invoice – cited in Gatlin’s indictment and obtained by the Herald – revealed Premier Choice was not providing services to the Foundation. Rather, the invoice was for the 100 Black Men of America conference in Atlanta.

Nearly 30 minutes later, Hill resubmitted the same invoice to Gatlin. This time, it claimed to be for “Jackson Health Foundation Summer Activations” – a non-existent event.

Gatlin forwarded the invoice to the Foundation’s finance director.

“For processing,” Gatlin wrote.

The Foundation paid Hill’s invoice with a credit card on May 20, 2024, according to Gatlin’s indictment and the Foundation’s invoices.

A few months later, Gatlin sent a personal email to Hill, saying she “approved” her $4,400 invoice for a “360 photobooth” at the 100 Black Men of America’s annual conference at the Hyatt Regency in Atlanta, according to the indictment.

Days later, Hill sent an invoice with the same charge to the Foundation for a “360 Booth” at Miami Swim Week. The Foundation, which paid the bill, was not part of the popular fashion event.

A spokeswoman for 100 Black Men of America said it did not pay Premier Choice for social media services for its conference last year. Hill did the work as a volunteer, the group said.

Bills nearly $2 million

In total, Hill submitted 122 invoices to the Foundation from 2018 through 2024 through her various companies – Premier Choice Group, Premier Choice Events and Premier Choice Marketing. She charged the Foundation about $1.81 million in total, according to Herald calculations of Gatlin-approved invoices obtained from Jackson.

Because Hill did provide some services to the Foundation, it’s difficult to say how much of that money funded Foundation events or went toward services for others. Gatlin’s indictment alleges the two women collaborated in falsifying invoices; the court record refers to Hill and her business, respectively, as “Co-Conspirator 2” and “Event Planning Company 1.”

It is not clear how they met, but both Gatlin and Hill certainly crossed paths through their work for 100 Black Men of America. Hill and her defense lawyer, Christopher Lomax, did not respond to Herald email and voice mail requests to comment for this article.

In April, one month before Gatlin was arrested by the FBI on fraud charges, Hill received a “target letter” from the lead federal prosecutor, Elizabeth Young, a court filing shows. Young advised her that she was a “target of a grand jury investigation in the Southern District of Florida involving possible violations of federal criminal law,” related to a wire-fraud probe, according to a copy of the letter filed in court.

Hill has not been charged in the Gatlin case.

Vuitton, Gucci bags

Hill’s business dealings with Gatlin may stand out, but her company’s transactions with the Foundation were not as numerous or as large as those involving Holsendolph, the Miami vendor. He filed 180 invoices for nearly $4 million.

Court and public records show that Holsendolph, a longtime businessman in Miami-Dade, billed the Foundation for millions of dollars in services – including several invoices that prosecutors say were entirely fabricated by Gatlin and him, according to Gatlin’s indictment. The indictment refers to Holsendolph as “Co-Conspirator 3” and Holsen as “Merchandising Company 1.”

Holsendolph has not been charged in the Gatlin case.

Gatlin’s indictment spells out their alleged scheme: She used the Foundation’s money to pay Holsen, his company, and then she would ask Holsendolph to buy her luxury goods through his contacts as a marketing distributor of promotional products and branded goods for events such as the Orange Bowl.

“Gatlin and [Holsendolph] falsified invoices to the Foundation to pay for Gucci, Louis Vuitton, and Apple electronics, including by falsely invoicing the Foundation for items that were never provided to the Foundation or Jackson by [Holsen.], ” the indictment said.

Among the purchases with Foundation funds: a Louis Vuitton Coussin PM bag ($4,350) and Helios Wedge Sandals ($1,170). In a Jan. 29, 2024, email to Holsendolph, Gatlin even specified that she wanted him to get the sandals in a size 42 [European] “in the same pattern as the Coussin purse,” according to her indictment.

Two years earlier, court and invoice records show Holsen received $13,975 from the Foundation that Gatlin approved for “items for hospital employee engagement survey.”

The items weren’t for employees; rather, they were for Gatlin.

Among the items: two Apple watches, two iPad Air’s, 2 Fitbits, a Louis Vuitton “on the go” bag, a Gucci “tote bag with leather details,” and a Gucci “Tennis 1977 sneaker” in women’s size 12 [Gatlin’s shoe size], according to an Aug. 29, 2022, email between Gatlin and Holsendolph.

The following month, Gatlin emailed Hosendolph with a link to a Louis Vuitton “loop handbag, stating, “This is the one she wants.” Gatlin didn’t identify the recipient by name.

Concealing laptop purchases

Every year between 2016 and 2024, Gatlin also asked Holsendolph to ship school supplies to one of her family members in Riceboro, according to her indictment. Gatlin’s relative delivered the supplies for yearly back-to-school rallies hosted by Project Reach G.A.N.G., a Riceboro nonprofit affiliated with a church in the area.

Among the supplies, which featured G.A.N.G.’s logo: T-shirts, uniforms, laptops, Apple AirPods, backpacks, paper, markers, pens, water bottles, gift cards, face masks and hand sanitizer – all at the Foundation’s expense. It’s unclear from Holsen’s invoices how much the company paid for these supplies.

“At times, Gatlin made it falsely appear on the Foundation invoices that the items were being used for a back-to-school event at Jackson North Medical Center,” the indictment says. “Gatlin and [Holsendolph] also falsified the invoices for the items provided to [G.A.N.G.] to conceal the purchase of electronics such as laptops.”

A director of Project Reach G.A.N.G did not respond to Herald emails or telephone calls for comment.

Jackson donors stand by Foundation

Miami philanthropists Trish and Dan Bell, who have given millions to different organizations across South Florida, are longtime supporters of the Foundation and are members of the Golden Angel Society, the Foundation’s premier giving group. They recently donated to help Jackson expand its ER into one of the largest in the nation.

On Thursday, the couple told the Herald they hope Gatlin’s arrest does not give anyone pause for supporting the Foundation’s mission to provide care for those in need.

This “fraud, as bad as it was, does not diminish in the least our confidence in the integrity or skills of the senior management of either the Hospital or the Foundation, who we know are still deeply committed to their mission of providing the community with the best health care possible,” the Bells said in a statement to the Herald.

“The only impact this fraud had on us was to reinforce our already strong awareness that our philanthropy dollars represent investments in organizations as much as in causes, which is why our larger and repetitive philanthropic investments are always with well-run organizations.”

Kickbacks detailed in court records

Perhaps one of the most challenging aspects of unraveling Gatlin’s web of fraudulent charges for investigators and Foundation officials was determining the validity of charges.

Overall, Holsendolph, Hill and other Foundation vendors did provide some goods and services to the nonprofit for legitimate fundraising events, according to Jackson documents reviewed by the Herald and Gatlin’s indictment. But many times, their bills, approved by Gatlin, never benefited the Foundation or Jackson Health, according to the indictment and Jackson records.

Consider Gatlin’s relationship with Jones, the Atlanta businessman who technically was not a Foundation vendor because his company, American Sound Design (ASD), did not provide any services to the Foundation or Jackson Health System.

In his plea agreement, Jones admitted using his company to submit more than $2 million in false bills to the Foundation for audiovisual services. American Sound Design received 53 payments from the Foundation that were authorized by Gatlin, including 51 wire transfers to his corporate account at Wells Fargo.

He then paid Gatlin kickbacks totaling more than $1 million in 63 wire transfers, 10 checks and one Zelle payment to her personal Bank of America account.

“At times, Charmain Gatlin instructed [Jones] how to falsify invoices to the Foundation for services ASD did not provide,” according to a factual statement filed with his plea agreement.

That’s evident in this email exchange: On Jan. 7, 2024, Jones emailed Gatlin’s personal email with a draft invoice for extending audiovisual equipment at the Jackson “Holiday Parties” two “additional days” for $50,172.50, the invoice says.

The following day, Gatlin responded in her personal email: “Get to $58,477. When you email it over ask for the status of the payment.”

Nine days later, on Jan. 16, Gatlin wired that same amount — $58,477 – to the bank account of Jones’ company, ASD.

Two days later, Jones wired a kickback of about $25,000 to Gatlin’s personal bank account. Jones then made a $20,000 payment on his American Express card using the Jackson funds.

100 Black Men of America: Not aware of Gatlin’s fraud

In statements provided to the Herald, 100 Black Men of America said it was not aware of Gatlin’s kickback scheme with Jones, including billing the Foundation for services that his firm provided to the Atlanta organization.

The organization confirmed that Jones provided those services between 2019 and 2024 under a different audiovisual company, American Electronic Entertainment. In fact, 100 Black Men of America said it paid Jones’ company more than $500,000 for his work, but the organization did not provide payment details.

“100 Black Men of America, Inc. has no knowledge of Ms. Gatlin’s alleged receipt of cash payments or fraudulent invoices being submitted by Ms. Gatlin or any other vendors in the indictment involving Jackson Health Foundation,” the organization said, adding that “Gatlin has never been paid by the 100 BMOA as a ‘go-between’ to then pay vendors for services provided to 100 BMOA.”

Last week, when asked to respond to more detailed questions about Jones, Holsendolph and Hill, the organization said it “has fully cooperated with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the investigation.

“With each detail revealed, we are more surprised at the way the charitable work of our organization was used in the illegal scheme described in the court filings that the parties and others created,” the group’s latest statement said.

“While 100 Black Men has been mentioned in this matter by the Miami Herald, there is nothing in any court filings by the U.S. Attorney to suggest any involvement in any illegal activity by our organization.”

100 Black Men of America hired Gatlin in January as a contractor for its annual conference in 2025 — but fired her in May when the organization said it learned about her indictment.

Golfing in Weston

Gatlin appeared to be a popular leader based on her evaluation reports over a 10-year career at the Foundation, which has just under 20 employees.

Before her firing last year, she made a base salary of $290,000. But her six-figure salary didn’t stop her from using the Foundation as her personal piggy bank, records show.

When Gatlin was arrested in May, the news media zeroed in on one titillating allegation in her indictment: that she ordered a new rose gold-colored golf cart for just over $15,500 from a Tampa supplier at the Foundation’s expense and had it delivered to her rented Weston home in September 2023.

Gatlin submitted an invoice for the new golf cart around the same time that two golf carts that belonged to Jackson Health System were being repaired by the Tampa company. She listed the expenses under the “transportation account” – by “making it appear as though the new golf cart would be used by Jackson or the Foundation,” according to the indictment.

The bill was bogus – but there’s more to her golf-fueled billing spree, according to invoices Gatlin approved and the Foundation paid.

Records show Gatlin submitted 14 invoices to the Foundation to pay for its board of directors’ golf memberships at the Club at Weston Hills between 2022 and 2023. But there was a problem: The Foundation’s board members don’t have golf privileges at the exclusive club. The Jackson Health Foundation said it does not pay golf memberships for anyone.

Foundation emails obtained by the Herald show the club membership was actually under Gatlin’s name. And when the Foundation’s finance director called attention to why the membership was not tax-free – normally the case with a nonprofit – Gatlin had an answer:

“This whole membership thing has been a mess,” Gatlin wrote in an email to the finance director, claiming the Foundation’s chair at the time determined “it was best” to do an individual member rate instead of the pricier corporate rate.

“They put my name down since I have the foundation email address and listed themselves as the guests,” Gatlin wrote. “By doing a membership rate, we don’t get the nonprofit exemptions. The monthly bills will come to my work email address. So we are stuck with paying taxes.”

In reality, the club’s billing statements show the only people to ever use the membership were Gatlin and her husband, Arthur, an avid golfer.

The total tab: $23,880.14 – footed by the Foundation.

Executive women’s club membership

Gatlin also used Foundation funds to pay her $2,900 annual membership fee to an executive women’s club in New York City. Invoice records show that Gatlin made six payments totaling $17,400 for her membership to CHIEF between 2021 and 2025.

In another instance, Gatlin charged the Foundation $198.57 for a June 2019 hotel stay at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas during the same week that 100 Black Men of America hosted its annual conference in Sin City.

Sometimes, Gatlin would also approve invoices from Georgia companies, which would have been unusual given that Jackson Health System and the Foundation usually work with South Florida vendors.

Falsifies board chair’s email

As time went on, Gatlin became more daring.

Perhaps the most brazen example of Gatlin’s scheme surfaced as her colleagues began to suspect she was misappropriating the Foundation’s funds last fall – before she was placed on leave and fired that November.

As they began to closely review her expenses in September 2024, her colleagues discovered that Gatlin falsified an email from Foundation chairman David Coulson.

She changed the original email, “making it look like the board member approved two invoices from” Holsen for more than $60,000, according to her indictment.

Coulson, in the altered email, writes “these two invoices are approved for payment,” according to emails the Herald obtained from Jackson. The invoices totaled more than $71,000 for “Orthopedic Giveaways” and “Hispanic Heritage Giveaway” – expenses for events that were “not authorized” and didn’t happen, records show.

Gatlin then authorized two fraudulent payments – $37,174 and $34,602 – to Holsen in October 2024, a month before she was fired, records show.

In reality, Gatlin never asked Coulson to approve the invoices. In fact, the email makes no mention of any invoices. Instead, Gatlin talks about an unspecified change in the Foundation. She tells the chairman that she doesn’t “have an issue with the change, but in how and when I found out.”

It’s unclear what change Gatlin was referring to. Coulson, a Miami lawyer, died unexpectedly last month. Based on the emails, it appears he never answered her.

Gatlin’s upcoming sentencing

Gatlin faces between four and seven years in prison, depending on how U.S. District Judge Beth Bloom weighs key factors: the amount of her theft from the Foundation, her leadership role, her abuse of the public trust, and the sophisticated nature of her billing scheme.

Soon after she pleaded guilty in mid-September, a person submitted a critical letter to the judge before her sentencing on Nov. 25 – an unusual move.

“I trust you will consider before sentencing, the fact that this single person can completely destroy the confidence individuals may feel when it comes to charity,” Bill Begley wrote the judge on Sept. 19, after Gatlin pleaded guilty to the wire-fraud conspiracy.

“It’s not just the amount of money she has stolen, but it is the impact on all charities,” he wrote. “When something like this occurs, there needs to be a significant punishment to send a signal to others [that] this is NOT acceptable in our society.”