Some clients do not return from The Red Door, a residential treatment facility in Bel Aire. According to multiple sources, the sick often do not get well and because of substandard care, clients have unnecessarily died. To make matters worse, clients and their wealthy families are often asked for monetary investments into the business and are preyed upon when they are at their lowest.
Alex Shohet, a recovering addict with no training in taking care of patients in rehab, co-owns the facility with another recovering addict, his wife. Berni Fried is a therapist who has a long history of treating celebrities – (some who have died themselves – such as DJ AM).
The couple previously owned a rehab facility called One8O. It was closed in 2013 due to allegations of misconduct that led to a police probe and a wrongful death lawsuit. When that business closed, Shohet became what is known as a sober companion. As mentioned earlier, he has no training in the recovery field as he was a computer systems engineer prior to making a move to emotionally and physically treating recovering addicts.
In the meantime, Fried had her license revoked by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences for “incompetence, negligence, and causing emotional harm to a client”. She was placed on a four-year probation that ended in April.
The Red Door was opened with the help of the deep pockets of a client’s family. Room rates can go as high as 15K per month. This does not include separate billable expenses such as sober companions and paying support staff.
Two clients have died under nefarious circumstances since the Red Door opened just three years ago. The owners have tried to silence critics by stating death rate statistics in the often discouraging world of recovery. One former employee calls it “death-as-usual”.
A former client says simply that, “It’s an approach that preys on addicts”.
