LEXINGTON, Ky. – A Charlotte, North Carolina, woman, Delores Jordan, 57, and Ernest Williams, 52, of Lexington, Ky., were sentenced this week to 60 months and five years of probation respectively, by U.S. District Judge Karen Caldwell for their roles in a kickback conspiracy and health care fraud.
Serenity Keeper’s, LLC (“Serenity Keepers”), owned by Jordan, was a sober home company based in Fayette County, Ky., that purported to provide mental health and substance abuse treatment services and housing for individuals enrolled in its program. Serenity Keepers allegedly used urine drug tests for their clients for non-medical reasons, such as ensuring sobriety. Beginning in 2019 through February 2022, Williams ran several sober homes operating as Serenity Keepers.
According to her plea agreement, in the fall of 2019, Jordan solicited kickbacks from an individual in exchange for the referral of urine drug testing from Serenity Keepers to various urine drug testing labs. Jordan received these kickbacks in the form of check, cash, and electronic payments for the referral of urine drug testing from Serenity Keepers to three different urine drug testing labs. In October 2021, the kickbacks increased to $5,000 and were paid to Jerome Davis, one of Jordan’s co-defendants, in the form of consulting payments, paid as checks, or ACH payments to Davis’s company X-Tremly for Christ, LLC.
Through the scheme, Jordan and Serenity Keepers caused Medicaid and Medicare to pay three different urine drug testing labs approximately $2,569,946 for urine drug testing referred to them, in exchange for unlawful kickbacks paid to Jordan. Willams performed urine drug testing on the residents of the homes he operated knowing the tests were not ordered by a medical provider and would not be reviewed by a medical provider.
As further part of the scheme, between August 2019 and March 2022, Serenity Keepers billed Medicaid for peer support services that were not provided by licensed peer support specialists. At Jordan’s direction, Williams stated that individuals living in his sober homes received six hours of peer support services per day, knowing that was not true. Over that time frame, Williams received $365,374.72, a percentage of the amount billed to Medicaid for the homes he managed.
Dashawn Dawkins was convicted earlier in April 2026 for his role in the kickback conspiracy and health care fraud conspiracy. Lily Bell, who paid the kickbacks to Dawkins, Jordan, and Davis, and who facilitated the abuse of the Nurse Practitioner’s stolen identifiers, pled guilty to aggravated identity theft. Jerome Davis pled guilty to his role in the kickback conspiracy and was sentenced to 12 months and 1 day of incarceration.
Under federal law, Jordan and Williams must serve 85 percent of their prison sentences. Upon their release from prison, they will be under the supervision of the U.S. Probation Office for 3 years.
Jason Parman, First Assistant United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky; Olivia Olson, Special Agent in Charge, FBI, Louisville Field Office; and Russell Coleman, Kentucky Attorney General, jointly announced the sentence.
The investigation was conducted by the FBI and the Kentucky Attorney General, Office of Medicaid Fraud and Abuse. The U.S. Attorney’s Office was represented in the case by Assistant U.S. Attorney Kate K. Smith.
