New details emerge in FBI raid on Kensington psych clinic

Portions of this story were reported on Monday, June 23rd.

On Monday, the FBI conducted a late-morning search-and-seizure operation at a Kensington mental health clinic with significant political connections. Sources reported seeing FBI agents going in and out of the Juniata Community Mental Health Clinic (JCMHC), near Fifth and Huntingdon Streets, through Monday afternoon, and an FBI spokesperson confirmed that the clinic was the target of “law-enforcement activities.”

JCMHC was the subject of a City Paper article last month that detailed allegations of Medicaid fraud and employee discrimination outlined in a whistleblower lawsuit filed in Common Pleas Court by an ex-employee. 

The raid and lawsuit are notable because JCMHC has ties to ward leader Carlos Matos and his wife, former Deputy City Commissioner Renee Tartaglione, and former ward leader Sandy Acosta, the mother of state representative hopeful Leslie Acosta.

Significantly, the lawsuit, which seeks compensation for wrongful termination, also alleges that Matos, a felon convicted of bribing three Atlantic City councilmen, had been acting as the clinic’s director last year. Those accusations contradict state records and Matos’ own claim that he no longer has any role at JCMHC. 

Matos had been on the clinic’s payroll in the past and, during a probation related to his bribery charge, received mental health treatment at JCMHC while he was also employed there as a therapist.

Matos’ wife is not named in the suit, but according to the city’s Department of Behavioral Health, an agency that provides a portion of JCMHC’s funding, Tartaglione is listed as the president of the clinic’s board of directors. Maria Matos, the couple’s daughter and a former employee for the city’s Register of Wills, is listed as its vice president.

Officially, Sandy Acosta, wife of former state Rep. Ralph Acosta, is listed on state filings as the clinic’s administrator. Their daughter, Leslie Acosta, who won a Democratic primary election last month for the 197th state rep seat, said in a phone interview Tuesday that she had volunteered at the clinic in 2005, helping out with ”paperwork.” 

She added that she had not been involved in operations “for years and years.” However, later in the same conversation she recanted that statement, claiming she had never volunteered at JCMHC. 

According to a biography on the younger Acosta’s campaign website, she also has served on the board of the Bucks County Mental Health Clinic in Bristol. Articles of incorporation for that clinic indicate that her mother also served as a board member. That clinic was taken over by a new company over a year ago, and neither serves on the board at present.

The Kensington clinic’s past extends beyond the raid and the lawsuit. State inspection records from 2013 show numerous violations, mostly related to a failure to conduct criminal background checks for clinic employees. Later inspection reports say those problems were resolved.

Additionally, JCMHC had originally incorporated as a 501(c)3 nonprofit, but that status lapsed in 2006. The IRS filed a tax lien for $11,000 against the clinic in 2009 for unpaid taxes. However, it’s not clear if any of these issues are related to the current FBI investigation.

Regional FBI spokesperson Carrie Adamowski says no arrests were made during Monday’s raid and declined to give additional details about the nature of the Bureau’s investigation. Nationally, the FBI has conducted six high-profile sting operations since the creation of a Medicare/Medicaid fraud strike force in 2007, including one last month that netted 90 arrests in six cities.

Reports surfaced several months ago purporting that Matos and other individuals affiliated with the clinic had received FBI target letters, informing them that they were the subject of an ongoing investigation.  

Neither Matos nor his lawyer, Geoffrey Johnson, responded to requests for comment.