Ex-COO of Jackson Health Foundation accused of pocketing more than $1M bonds out
Gatlin, 52, the former chief operating officer of Jackson Health Foundation, said nothing as a magistrate judge set her bond at $30,000 and her arraignment for later this month. One of the bond conditions prohibits her from contacting co-conspirators and others who are not named in a grand jury indictment.
Her husband, Arthur Gatlin, who co-signed the bond, accompanied her to court. After the brief court hearing, Gatlin and her defense attorney, David Howard, declined to comment.
Gatlin was arrested on May 21 in a town near Savannah where she now lives. The indictment charges her with a single count of conspiring with other individuals to commit wire fraud, 26 counts of wire fraud and five counts of money laundering. If convicted, the charges carry sentences that could send her to prison for years.
Gatlin is accused of directing an almost decade-long kickback scheme in which she pocketed more than $1 million from purported Jackson Health Foundation contractors and used the money to buy expensive designer items from Louis Vuitton and Gucci. She's also accused of paying a vendor to make her a rose gold-covered golf cart valued at more than $15,000 that was delivered to her Weston home in 2023.
$3.6 million in 'false' invoices: indictment
The indictment says that as the Foundation's COO for the past decade, Gatlin signed off on $3.6 million of 'false' invoices submitted by South Florida and Georgia contractors for goods and services that were not provided to the foundation.
She authorized using foundation funds to pay an audiovisual firm, a store that sold designer goods, and an event planning company that created videos, a website and other services for a family member's softball team, the indictment says.
Gatlin, who received a bachelor's degree in French from the University of Florida, has ties to several Atlanta-area civic and religious groups.
According to the indictment, Gatlin had worked as a vice president at one of those civic organizations before she was hired at the Jackson Health Foundation a decade ago. The indictment says she diverted some of the money from her foundation scheme to pay for services, such as putting together annual conferences between 2019 and 2024, that benefited her former employer in Atlanta.
Her former employer is not identified in the indictment, but the Miami Herald has learned its name is 100 Black Men of America, Inc., a youth mentoring organization with headquarters in Atlanta. Gatlin also listed the civic organization on her LinkedIn page, where she indicates she was senior vice president of events and operations from 2006 to 2014.
'The invoices approved by Gatlin made it falsely appear as though the Foundation or Jackson received the goods and services,' the indictment says.
Six-figure salary
Gatilin started working as an executive for the Foundation in 2014. Her salary as its chief operating officer ranged from $185,000 to $290,000 between 2019 and 2024, according to the indictment.
Gatlin, who spent the past decade as the foundation's COO, was fired in November, according to the 20-page indictment, filed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Young.
Before her departure, she had risen to co-president of the foundation alongside Flavia Llizo, who is now CEO. As co-president and COO of the foundation, Gatlin oversaw financial management, budgeting and special events.
'Possible misappropriation' of funds: audit
The Miami Herald reported at the end of January that an audit of the foundation showed that it was under investigation for a 'possible misappropriation' of funds. The audit said the investigation was being conducted by an independent forensic expert and law enforcement.
The investigation was brought to light earlier this year by the Public Health Trust, the volunteer board appointed by the county to oversee the tax-subsidized hospital system. Though Jackson Health and the foundation work symbiotically, their finances are separate.
The Herald recently requested public records related to the Foundation's audit and Gatlin's alleged misappropriation of funds, including invoices, but Jackson officials said they could not provide them because of the ongoing FBI investigation.
The Jackson Health Foundation — which raised more than $9 million for Jackson Health last year — is governed by a volunteer board of directors and helps raise money for one of South Florida's largest public hospitals, Jackson Memorial. It serves as the county's public safety net hospital, providing care to everyone, indigent or not.
Miami Herald staff writer Michelle Marchante contributed to this story.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
a minute ago
- Yahoo
Prime Medicine Announces Closing of Public Offering and Full Exercise of the Underwriters' Option to Purchase Additional Shares
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Aug. 01, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Prime Medicine, Inc. (Nasdaq: PRME), a biotechnology company committed to delivering a new class of differentiated one-time curative genetic therapies, today announced the closing of its underwritten public offering of 43,700,000 shares of its common stock, which includes the full exercise of the underwriters' option to purchase 5,700,000 additional shares of its common stock, at a public offering price of $3.30 per share. The underwriters did not receive any discounts or commissions with respect to an aggregate of 1,818,181 shares of common stock sold to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. All of the shares of common stock in the offering were sold by Prime Medicine. The gross proceeds to Prime Medicine from the offering, before deducting underwriting discounts and commissions and offering expenses, were approximately $144.2 million. TD Cowen and BMO Capital Markets acted as joint book-running managers for the offering. The shares of common stock were offered by Prime Medicine pursuant to an effective shelf registration statement on Form S-3 that was previously filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on November 3, 2023 and declared effective by the SEC on November 13, 2023 (File No. 333-275321). The offering was made only by means of a written prospectus and prospectus supplement that form a part of the registration statement. A final prospectus supplement relating to and describing the terms of the offering was filed with the SEC and is available on the SEC's website at Copies of the final prospectus supplement and the accompanying prospectus relating to the offering may be obtained from TD Securities (USA) LLC, 1 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, New York 10017, by telephone at (855) 495-9846, or by email at or BMO Capital Markets Corp., Attention: Equity Syndicate Department, 151 West 42nd Street, 32nd Floor, New York, New York 10036, by email at bmoprospectus@ This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy these securities, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to the registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction. About Prime Medicine Prime Medicine is a leading biotechnology company dedicated to creating and delivering the next generation of gene editing therapies to patients. The Company is deploying its proprietary Prime Editing platform, a versatile, precise and efficient gene editing technology, to develop a new class of differentiated one-time curative genetic therapies. Prime Editors are designed to make only the right edit at the right position within a gene while minimizing unwanted DNA modifications. Prime Medicine is currently progressing a diversified portfolio of investigational therapeutic programs organized around our core areas of focus: liver, lung, and immunology and oncology. Across each core area, Prime Medicine is focused initially on a set of high value programs, each targeting a disease with well-understood biology and a clearly defined clinical development and regulatory path. Investor and Media ContactsGregory DearbornPrime Medicine857-209-0696gdearborn@ Hannah DeresiewiczPrecision
CNN
33 minutes ago
- CNN
Father of Georgia school shooter had letter from son ‘asking for forgiveness' on day of the shooting, testimony reveals
The father of the accused Apalachee High School shooter was in possession of a letter from his son asking for forgiveness on the day of the shooting, an investigator testified during a court hearing Friday. Georgia Bureau of Investigation Special Agent John Giunta testified law enforcement officers conducting a protective sweep of Colin Gray's home saw a letter from his son in which 'Colt was asking for forgiveness.' Attorneys for the father argued during a Friday motions hearing that statements and evidence collected shortly after the shooting should not be used in trial. The hearing in Winder, Georgia, took place just after students at Apalachee High School started their first day back at school, just a few miles away. It's been almost 11 months since the mass shooting left two students and two teachers dead, as well as nine people injured, about 50 miles outside of Atlanta. Gray's attorneys told a judge a protective sweep when deputies arrived at the Gray home the morning of the shootings was more of a search and was done prior to a warrant being issued. 'Not only did he see the letter, he obviously read it. Because he gave that information to the GBI agent who was getting the search warrant,' defense attorney Jimmy Berry said. 'That is a search.' The content of the accused shooter's letter was used in part to get a search warrant, Berry told Judge Nicholas Primm. 'It was an illegal search,' Berry said. 'It was not a protective sweep' 'If the magistrate used that in his decision to issue the search warrant, then the search warrant itself is bad,' Berry told the court. 'If you give information that's bad in a search warrant it invalidates it.' State investigators testified they secured and executed a search warrant for the home on September 4, the same day as the mass shooting. District attorney Brad Smith rebutted that the sweep was necessary to protect the law enforcement officers at the house and that Colin Gray had verbally given permission to search the home. One of the deputies who spoke to Colin Gray at his home following the shootings testified that Gray was calm and spoke to him voluntarily. Portions of Deputy Brandon Bazinet's body camera video were played in court. In the video Gray says, 'If you just need OK, you all can go. You don't need a search warrant there ain't nothing there to hide. And it's clear it has something to do with my son. I just want to make sure he is not hurt.' While speaking with an officer in the video, Colin Gray says, 'I know it's bad,' as he worried about the physical condition of his son. The defense said the statements were not made voluntarily. They claim Colin Gray had been moved away from his home amid 'corrosive police activity.' Portions of a second video were played in court of Gray speaking to investigators during an interview the day after the shootings. In the video, Gray speaks with a deputy casually, talking about how his name had been handed down through his family. Barrow County Sheriff's investigator Jason Smith testified that during the taped interview authorities were in the process of obtaining a warrant for Gray's arrest, which he said he did not know at the time. Colin Gray has been charged with two counts of second-degree murder – alleging that he shares responsibility for the September shooting at Apalachee High School, where four people were killed. Colin Gray is facing 29 charges in total; he has pleaded not guilty to the charges. Judge Primm said he will rule on the motions to suppress the statements made by Colin Gray and whether the search warrant was valid within the month. Colin Gray is only the third person charged in the US in connection with a school shooting by their child. Investigators previously testified in court that Colin Gray bought the AR-15-style rifle allegedly used in the school shooting for Colt Gray as a Christmas present last year, only seven months after the family was questioned by law enforcement over online threats 'to commit a school shooting.' His trial had been scheduled to start this fall but was pushed back due to scheduling conflicts with his defense team. A new trial date for Colin Gray has not been set yet. Colin's son Colt is accused of killing four people and injuring others. He was 14 at the time of the shooting has been indicted on 55 felony counts. Authorities have said that Colt admitted to the shooting, according to court records. Attorneys for Colt told the court earlier this year that he may change his not guilty plea and is considering a plea deal. CNN's Ryan Young contributed to this report
Yahoo
40 minutes ago
- Yahoo
‘Aggressive' river otters spark lawsuit from Washington mother
PORTLAND, Ore. () — A Washington mother is suing a Seattle-area port nearly a year after a river otter attacked her toddler. The woman filed the complaint against the Port of Bremerton in Kitsap County Superior Court on July 25. Court records show that she and her daughter, who was two years old at the time of the attack, live on a sailboat in the port-operated Bremerton Marina. Senate confirms Joe Kent, ex-Washington candidate with extremist ties, to lead counterterrorism unit on the incident in September 2024. On Sept. 12, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife revealed an otter had pulled the child into the water as she walked along the dock with their mom. According to the agency, the child eventually resurfaced after being pulled under water. WDFW said the otter bit the mother as she lifted her child from the water. The toddler was later treated at a Silverdale hospital, for the scratches and bites they had sustained on their head, face and legs. The mother also claimed they had to receive rabies vaccinations, and her daughter still faces 'nightmares and behavioral aggression.' Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now The complaint alleges many of the on-site security cameras 'are inoperative at any given time,' while the plaintiff pays the port a monthly service fee of about $125. 'Prior to the attack, the Port of Bremerton had actual and repeated notice of otter activity on and around E Dock and had received complaints about their aggressive nature,' Attorney Christopher Froines wrote. 'Tenants and staff had lodged multiple complaints with the Port about aggressive otter behavior, including otters defecating on docks, damaging marina property, living on several abandoned or derelict boats, being aggressive toward marina tenants and posing a risk to public safety.' Froines also alleged another resident of the Bremerton Marina repeatedly complained to staff about related issues, such as an 'otter-infested and foul' boat and otters that created safety hazards by 'dragging 'fish guts and feces all over the docks.'' Oregon Bureau of Land Management timber sales made more than $13.5M in revenue in July But the lawsuit accuses management of failing to minimize 'wild animal activity.' Defendants are being sued for negligence, gross negligence and negligent infliction of emotional distress, among other claims. KOIN 6 has reached out to the port for comment. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Solve the daily Crossword
