Christina Jewett

Reporter

Christina Jewett is a reporter for Reveal, covering labor and workplace issues with a focus on the workers' compensation system. With reporting partner Will Evans and CNN, she exposed widespread fraud and failed government oversight of California’s network of addiction treatment centers for the poor. The stories led to the defunding of more than 200 rehab clinics and changes in state law. The Emmy-nominated series won the 2013 broadcast award from Investigative Reporters and Editors. Jewett – as part of California Watch, a project of The Center for Investigative Reporting – won the 2011 George Polk Award for medical reporting with Lance Williams and Stephen K. Doig. The series exposed outsized rates of rare but lucrative medical conditions at a rapidly growing hospital chain and spurred a federal investigation. She was also a Livingston Award finalist in 2010. Previously, Jewett worked at ProPublica and The Sacramento Bee, where a story she broke about contracting malfeasance led to arrests and convictions. She and a colleague also chronicled jail abuse and medical mistreatment, spurring countywide policy reforms. Those stories were honored with awards from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the National Council on Crime and Delinquency. Jewett is based in Sacramento, California.

cjewett@revealnews.org
cjewett@revealnews.org 916-202-0886 By_CJewett
Posted inCriminal Justice, Health Care, Health Care Scams

Clinic leaders tied to fraud in LA reap taxpayer funds in Riverside County

by Christina Jewett and Will Evans

The state Department of Health Care Services has primary responsibility for safeguarding the Medi-Cal program against fraud. It took over Drug Medi-Cal in 2012.CNN A drug rehab clinic in Los Angeles was shut down after a criminal investigation found Medi-Cal fraud. Another, in Riverside County, continued to flourish, reaping increasing amounts of taxpayer money. The […]

Posted inCriminal Justice, Health Care, Health Care Scams

Lax oversight leaves California drug rehab funds vulnerable to fraud

by Christina Jewett and Will Evans

Alexander Ferdman was convicted in 2000 of engaging in organized crime in Texas. Despite a state law barring felons from running Medi-Cal clinics, California officials approved his drug rehab clinic in 2003.CNN Highlights Weak, uncoordinated oversight by state and county officials has allowed fraud to flourish in California’s drug and alcohol rehabilitation program. State officials […]

Posted inHealth Care

Hole in California law allows sex offenders to become addiction counselors

by Christina Jewett and Will Evans

California State CapitolAndy Z./Shutterstock “Sexual psychopath.” That was the diagnosis a court-ordered psychiatrist gave Donald Robert Hoffman after he was convicted of molesting a 13-year-old boy in 1965. Hoffman, the psychiatrist determined, was a danger to others. But that history didn’t stop Hoffman from becoming a state-registered drug and alcohol counselor decades later, even though […]