Vault Release: CHRIS BATHUM Part 3 of 5: Rumors

0:00You may have heard of the sex cult NXIVM and the famous actress who went to prison for her involvement, Alison Mack. But she's never told her side of the story, until now. People assume that I'm like this pervert. My name is Natalie Robamed, and in my new podcast, I talk to Alison to try to understand how she went from TV actor to cult member, and what she thinks of it all now. How do you feel about having been involved in bringing sexual trauma to other people? I mean, I don't even know how to answer that question. Alison, after NXIVM from CBC's Uncover, is available now, wherever you get your podcasts.

0:33This episode contains disturbing content, including mention of sexual assault, illicit drug use, and explicit language. Please take care while listening. Rose Stahl believed her therapist, Chris Batham, was an ethical man. Then he told her of his plan to have Cliff Brodsky murdered. Rose couldn't get that conversation out of her head. Was he serious? Could it have been a dark joke? She decided to confront him. I was like, hey, man, like, do you remember that conversation that we had about Brodsky, you know? And he's like, yeah. And I was like, maybe that murder talk, like, maybe that's, you know, maybe we shouldn't do that.

1:18And I'm keeping it light and kind of ditzy and cute. Like, I'm like, I don't know what, I'm just like, ha, ha, ha, ha. Because I'm fucking, I don't know, how do you have this conversation with your therapist slash boss? I don't know what I expected, but I did not expect his reaction. And his reaction was just a boom. And he was like pointing at me and he was starting. He was like, do not put your damage, shame, bullshit onto me. Had you ever seen that side of him before? Had you ever seen that anger? No, I had never, I had never seen him actually mad ever. And it was just as shocking. His anger at me was almost more shocking than the fact in the moment that he was serious about having this guy murdered.

2:00Chris said he'd helped so many people turn their lives around that having one person murdered wasn't that big of a deal. He was like, my scale of like doing good is so heavy that having Cliff Brodsky murdered is not going to tip it. Rose could no longer quiet her suspicions. Over the next months, she would start to think about all the rumors she'd heard. Of insurance fraud, of drug use, of sexual assault. What if it was all true? She'd begin to turn against Chris Batham and look for ways to report him. She had heard him threaten to murder someone, but was that enough? Was that proof of anything?

2:44So there was that, but I still need more. You know, it's like that's not enough to like go to the FBI. Chris Batham's lack of concern for Cliff Brodsky's life, for human life, hit Rose particularly hard because of something that happened one month prior. Rose had a dream one night. In her dream, a client died. I texted Batham. It was like a Sunday. I woke up the next morning and I was like, I had this dream that a client died last night. Rose said Chris made a joke in response, something like, maybe a client did die, wouldn't that be your dream come true? It was a pun, I guess. A weird, dark joke that was characteristic of Chris Batham.

3:30But then, a few days later, Rose got the news that a client actually had died. Someone she knew. A friend of hers. Wednesday morning, we get the news that Mo had been found dead in his friend's car. And then, you know, we find out that he had died that Sunday night that I'd had that dream. So weird. So weird. And that was devastating for everyone. I mean, he had been sitting in this car dead for three days. We were just like, how did that happen? How did nobody check or just super weird? There were a lot of unsettling and suspicious aspects to this client's death. Things that just didn't make sense.

4:20Rose would begin to wonder what had really happened. Had Chris Bathom been involved somehow? From Cast Media, this is The Opportunist. This is season four, episode three. Chris Bathom. Rumors. I'm Hannah Smith.

4:50Mo Baracott died of a drug overdose in January of 2015. He was found in a parked car outside the gate of the Sierra Lae Cold Canyon Sober Living House in Calabasas. Mo had been a client at Sierra Lea for over a year, although technically he wasn't a client when he died. He had been kicked out a few days before. He was a young kid. I think he was 24, 23. He was just like real, he was just kind of a little wild, but he wanted to be there, you know. Staff would get frustrated with him at times, but he was very beloved. Rose had witnessed Mo's recovery, which was a bit rocky. He had relapsed a couple times, but had always committed himself again to get sober.

5:36But Rose said the month leading up to his death was different. First of all, he was promoted to client staff and given a job that seemed irresponsible and inappropriate. And so I had been told that he had been given a job as like a tech in a woman's house right before he relapsed. And I was just like one of those like where we were like, this feels like a weird conspiracy. But like, what the fuck? Like, did Batham want him to relapse? Mo got caught having sex with one of the female clients, which is against CRLA policy. But Rose says this wasn't a surprise to anyone. Mo had some issues with sex addiction.

6:23The fact that he was given this job in a house full of women felt so negligent to Rose that it was suspicious, as if whoever gave him that job was setting him up for something. We put like a borderline sex addict in charge of women. The house, like super weird. And then when he behaves the way that any reasonable person would expect him to behave, the punishment that he was doled out was just so severe. You know, because it was another one of those, what a fucking piece of shit, what a fucking piece of shit, you know, that fucking piece of shit, that kind of, like, talk. Shortly after Mo was caught sleeping with a CRLA client, he relapsed, failed a drug test, and was kicked out of CRLA.

7:08CRLA required all clients to maintain their sobriety. Any drug or alcohol use at CRLA was a danger to all the other clients. So from the outside, it looked like Chris Batham had followed protocol by kicking Mo out. But Rose wasn't sure that was the whole story. You could tell Batham was like mad at him. The rumor is that Mo knew what Batham was up to. And Mo was kind of hooking up, still hooking up with one of the girls. And he went to go meet up with her because she was at a hotel. And as he was leaving, spending time with her, he ran into Batham. The rumor went Mo ran into Chris at a hotel and discovered that Chris was there with a female client.

7:55So none of this is verified. Mo kind of confronted him and bathed him just to shut him up, kind of gave him some drugs. And those were the drugs that he overdosed on. He was a benzo user. He didn't really do opiates ever. And it was opiates that he died from. The benzos were in his pocket, but there was no opiate in his pocket when he was found dead. So, I mean, that's like a less... The implication was that Batham had wanted him to overdose. I spoke with Rebecca Arvizu. She's an attorney in Los Angeles, and her son was a client at CRLA at the same time as Mo. They were friends. Rebecca doesn't want me to use her son's name, but she says that he was deeply affected by Mo's death.

8:41He would work with Mo. He said he did some jobs with Mo around the facility. And Mo talked about how Chris would give him access to the medication locker if he did certain jobs for him. And so Mo had it. So they knew he was using. So your son told you that Mo told him that if Mo did certain things for Chris, you know, he would be rewarded with drugs or access to the medication locker? Yeah, my son didn't see that, but he suspected it, especially after talking to Mo and some of the other guys. And then he was vanished, and then he couldn't come back, and then he was found, you know, outside. Although CRLA required clients to be drug tested regularly, Chris Batham had the power to exempt people from those tests.

9:38In theory, Chris could have been giving Mo drugs while he was still a client at CRLA and excluding Mo from the regular drug tests. And then all Chris would have had to do to get Mo kicked out would be to have him drug tested. Rebecca told me one more thing she'd heard. I remember my son saying, well, he knew about the girls. He knew about the girls, and look what happened to him. He does not want to talk about it, though. Whenever I try to talk to him about it, he really, he just shuts down. He knew about the girls. What if the rumors were true? What if Chris Batham gave Mo drugs? Did Mo know something that he wasn't supposed to know?

10:32Subscribe to The Opportunist wherever you listen to podcasts to make sure you never miss an episode. You can also rate the show and write us a review at Apple Podcasts. It really does help the show, so thank you so much.

10:51I can't get this story about Mo out of my head. There's so much that doesn't add up. It's hard for me to believe that he was dead in his friend's car for days, parked right outside the Cold Canyon sober living house, and no one thought to check the car. I had a lot more questions about this, and so I contacted Mo's family. It's been seven years since Mo died. His mother told me that for the first few years, she was just too sad to talk about her son's death. Her decision to speak out now is partially motivated by the hope that it will bring justice to her son. She did not want her name used, so we will refer to her as Mo's mother.

11:32He was a really nice kid. I love Muhammad so much, and I was desperate to help him in any way I can. Mo is short for Muhammad. Mo's parents immigrated to the U.S. before he was born, and they're Muslim. This never seemed to be a problem, though. Mo grew up in a suburb of Los Angeles, a typical American kid. He loved the rapper Eminem, and he wanted to make music himself someday. But then September 11th happened, and everything changed for him. He keeps, like, you know, complaining to me. He told me, Mom, you know, I got on a problem with kids because of my name, Muhammad, especially after September 11th.

12:15And I keep getting into some issues with kids and, you know, with teachers. And he got into fights. And so he told me, Mom, I'm really facing a lot of problems. Mo was bullied. He was getting into fights and having problems with teachers. And then he just stopped going to school, calling in sick most days. He developed a Xanax habit, and his drug use escalated from there. My daughters, and they told me, Mom, I think Mohammed is doing drugs, and this problem is going to be worse. After going to a correctional boarding school, then a private school, Mo got his high school diploma. He decided to study music at the Los Angeles Recording School.

12:58At first, it seemed like he was going to be okay. But then he started using drugs again. And eventually he got kicked out from the school. And he was in jail in and out for like, you know, a few days, then bailed him out. Then he got a court order that he has to go to a rehab for 12-month residential treatment. At the time, Mo's father owned a liquor store, and one of his customers happened to work at CRLA. He introduced Mo's parents to Chris Batham. Mo didn't have insurance, and his parents couldn't pay out of pocket. But Chris Batham offered Mo a scholarship. He could go to CRLA for free. So it was in November 2013.

13:45That's when he started there. And I saw Mohamed was so improving quickly. Like, he was doing so good. Different look, you know. He used to be skinny. We see him start gaining weight, looking healthy. So we're happy. We all, all the family, we were impressed, like, you know, how this treatment center could change Muhammad like that and quickly. So we all, we all believe it. We trusted Chris Batham. So unbelievable. We thought like he's a miracle, like to change our son like this. The difference was visible. Mo was getting healthier. And his parents credited Chris Batham for that. There were a few times over the course of his first year at CRLA in which Mo relapsed, but he was allowed to stay and keep working toward sobriety.

14:35Then, in the fall of 2014, Chris made this decision that seemed really strange to Mo's mother. Chris wanted Mo's family to come in every single week for personalized therapy with Chris Batham. So I was like, you know, weirded out. Why just without family? Then I talked to my daughters and my husband. They said, you just listen to him. Let's do whatever he asks us to do. He's helping our son and he's not taking any money from us. Let's do whatever it takes. So we start attending this meeting. Mo's mother told me that Chris's advice throughout those therapy sessions was strange and uncomfortable.

15:13Mo's younger sister was in college at the time studying business and Chris did a one-on-one therapy session with her. He offered her a loan to start her own business. She declined. Then Chris focused on Mo's mother. He insisted that Mo's mother should move out of the family house and into an apartment of her own. This was his therapeutic advice. He told her that she was the reason Mo was doing drugs and that she had to leave the house. I said, no, I'm not moving from my house. Why do you want me to move out? He told me, you are the reason for him doing drugs. He's taking advantage of you. He kept telling, convincing me that, like you are, you are, you have to move out.

15:55Well, I told him, no, I'm not going to move out from my house. Mo's mother isn't sure why Chris was so focused on her moving out of the family house, but she wasn't going to do it. She worried that because she had refused to do what Chris asked, that Mo might be kicked out of CRLA as a result. And she was right. Within a week of her telling Chris that she wouldn't move out of the house, she got a call. Mo had been kicked out of Sierra LA for using drugs. They told her where they would be dropping Mo off in case she wanted to pick him up. Mohamed was on drugs. Then my husband and I, we were talking, said, oh, we have to listen to Chris Batham.

16:35He told us if they ever kicked him out, we can't bring him back in to our house. During those family therapy sessions, Chris Batham had made Mo's entire family swear that if Mo ever relapsed, they would not let him back into the house. Mo even agreed to that at the time. Even though Mo's family was beginning to be suspicious of Chris Batham at that point, there was still a lingering feeling that Chris was this genius therapist who knew best. So they decided to take his advice and they didn't let Mo come back. Just leave him there. Let's see what he's going to do. He has no money. He has nothing.

17:14What's the worst could happen? How is he going to get drugs? Then that night we left him there. And I think Chris, he knew that Mohammed was going to call him. He's going to ask him for help. And I think that's what my son does. He calls Chris. Much later, Mo's mother would learn that a CRLA client went and picked Mo up in his car. But she didn't know that at the time. In fact, she had no idea where Mo was. Typically, she spoke with him on the phone every day. So when she wasn't able to get in contact with him for more than 24 hours, she knew something was wrong. She called CRLA and she told them Mo was missing.

17:57They insisted. He was not at CRLA. Mo's parents drove around the city looking everywhere they could for him. So we're going to the places where Mohammed used to hang out on. Okay. Then we went to the police station in Calabasas, I think, to file a missing person report. Said, you know, our son's been missing for more than 24 hours. By Monday, Mo's mother was inconsolable. She kept calling CRLA. She said she felt that someone there knew something about her son. Guys, he stopped by. You know something. I know from their voice, it's like they're sad. Oh, we don't know, really. If we hear something, we're going to let you know.

18:44And around that time when I called him, he was crying, crying all the time, because I know I'm going to hear that they found his body. Mo's mother believed then, and still believes now, that the people she spoke to at CRLA were not honest with her. They knew something about Mo. So I kept calling, calling, like I was annoying them. I need to know where is my son. Finally, a staff member called her crying and told her they had found Mo's body in a car outside of the facility. Mo's mother told me that this is the story CRLA relayed to her. After Mo was kicked out, he contacted a client named Gabe.

19:26Gabe went and picked up Mo and brought him back to CRLA, to the sober living house in Calabasas where Mo had previously lived. But Mo wasn't allowed back inside. So instead, Gabe let Mo stay in his car until he could find a more permanent place to live. A few days went by, and then Gabe went to check on his car or get something from his car. That part isn't totally clear. And he found Mo dead. Did you believe their story, or did you believe that it happened how they said? No, definitely not. I said it must be Mohammed took something strong to kill him. And he won't stay in the car till he die.

20:07I know my son, he will go out, go look for more drugs. And who would give him a drug like that to kill him? Where did they get that drug? A lot of questions in our mind. And why would he die when he go back to the rehab? There is a story. We couldn't believe it like that. Mo's mother shared his autopsy report with me. Mo had lethal amounts of two different opioids in his body. Oxycontin, and a drug called Opana, along with Xanax and an antidepressant. The opioids were suspicious to his mother, just as they had been to Rose. It wasn't Mo's typical choice of drug. Just as Rose and Rebecca told me, Mo's mother also believes that Mo knew something about Chris.

20:51Shortly before he died, he had told his mother and sisters not to trust Chris Batham. This is Moe's mother's theory about what happened. She thinks that after Moe was kicked out of Sierra LA, when he had nowhere else to go, he called Chris Batham and threatened Tim. That if Chris didn't let him back into Sierra LA or maybe give him drugs, that Moe would speak out about what he knew about Chris. Then she thinks Chris let Moe back into Sierra LA, gave him the drugs he overdosed on, and then moved his body to the car and parked it outside the property of CRLA so as not to be investigated for the death.

21:33Of course, this is just a theory. We think that my son passed away in the facility. I believe, like, someone gave him this drug, and he passed away inside, and probably Chris was scared, said, don't call police or 911 or anything, or we all going to be in jail, so let's put his body back in the car. That's from our imagination, okay? We thought like that, but God knows the fact. Mo's mother holds out hope that someday her son's death will be investigated. But what she needs for that to happen is for someone to come forward with something more than a rumor or a theory. After Mo died, his mother received a lot of phone calls from clients and staff at Sierra LA.

22:24She says it was as if they felt guilty. It was as if they knew something. Till now, it's been seven years. I need to know what happened just for me, for me to relax and make me feel better knowing what happened. And still like this is a mystery. Still thinking, oh, probably this and that. I need to know what's... because, you know, I know the people who work there or who attended the rehab. They know the fact. I know they know the truth, what happened. Why? What made me say that? Because they contacted me. They said, okay, you know, could be something happened like that. They saw something. It's not just like they're thinking that what happened.

23:10I believe they saw something. They saw my son dying there. But I need to know the fact. How did he die? What happened that time? And why my son was dead two days? And they know that he was dead. He was in the car. And we didn't know about it. Moe's death was never investigated. His body was found outside the property of CRLA, and he wasn't technically a client when he died. To an outsider, Moe was just another person struggling with addiction, who relapsed, overdosed, and died. It happens all the time.

23:50I spoke with one more person about Mo's death, a former employee at CRLA who knew him. We didn't record the conversation, and I won't share her name, but I'll tell you what we talked about. First of all, she was working at the Cold Canyon Sober Living Facility, which means she was coming and going every day. She said there is absolutely no way that a car could have been parked right outside the gate for days without anyone noticing. CRLA had actually made a policy that clients and staff couldn't park their cars outside the gate because neighbors were complaining. I told her the theory about Mo dying inside the premises of CRLA and then his body being moved.

24:32She had no idea if this was true. But she did say, having a dead client on site would be very bad for Chris Batham and CRLA. It most likely would have prompted an investigation. She also told me right after Mo's body was found, she heard Chris Batham tell Kirsten Wallace, write Mo's parents a check. Mo's mother confirmed that Chris Batham did give them a check to cover Moe's funeral expenses. I truly don't think that this person, or anyone else I spoke to for that matter, knows what happened to Moe. But if you have any information about the death of Mohamed Barakat, you can contact the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

25:40The more I dig into this story, the more surprised I am by how many things Chris Batham got away with, by how he was able to talk his way out of things. He was surrounded by people, but for whatever reason, he was able to keep them quiet. Beyond the rumors of negligence, of sexual assault, and of him giving clients drugs, there were also a lot of rumors of insurance fraud. I wanted to talk with someone who worked in the insurance department at CRLA. And then in late 2021, I got a text from a woman named Jill. Jill hasn't shared publicly about her story until recently, but she agreed to speak with me.

26:23So I drove to Venice to meet her at her apartment. Hi, my name is Jill. I am from Los Angeles. In 2012, Jill was in her mid-30s. She had survived cancer but developed a pill addiction that took over her life. I ended up being pretty much left on my own. My family was gone and I had nowhere to go. Jill checked into CRLA when she had no other options. She remembers filling out the intake paperwork. You know, I was so broken and beaten down and just hopeless at that point that I didn't care what I was signing. I wasn't even listening, to be honest. Like, I just signed everything. I didn't even care.

27:09When Jill arrived at CRLA, she had to hand over her Social Security card, her ID, and sign a bunch of waivers. It was a surprise to her two months later to find out that CRLA had signed her up for insurance. Jill saw it as a good thing. Not only was she getting sober, now she had insurance. By the summer of 2013, Jill was hired as a full-time staff member working in the billing department. She was offered a very generous salary, more money than she'd ever made in her life, legally anyway. She never worked in insurance or billing, but she's smart and resourceful, and so she figured it out. But a few months in, she started to notice something strange.

27:50They were billing the insurance companies for the facility billing for like$2 ,000 a day and getting paid. And then also billing from a different NPI number under Los Angeles Family Institute instead of Community Recovery Los Angeles with a different tax ID, different NPI with professional billing. So we were double billing. So like one client, they were billing twice. Right. We're billing all-inclusive, and then we're also billing for each individual group and everything for every day. Professional billing is for services like therapy. Facility billing is for all-inclusive live-in treatment. Jill noticed that CRLA was billing twice for the same treatment, once under facility and then again with professional, but using different MPI numbers and under different LLCs.

28:47He has this way of taking a pen and a whiteboard and talking in circles until you swear you believe him that the sky is orange and fish fly. Chris Botham talked in circles until Jill was convinced. Chris claimed he wasn't doing anything illegal. He just understood the nuances of insurance billing and he was working the system legally. He said because he was so good at billing, he was able to bring in more clients and offer more scholarships. Whenever I would try and ask questions, he really spun this whole Robin Hood. The insurance companies are screwing everyone over. We're saving lives. The more money we get paid from the insurance company, the more people we can bring in on scholarship.