The former Chief Operating Officer of the Jackson Health Foundation, the fundraising arm of Jackson Health System, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud stemming from a scheme that stole more than $4 million from the organization.
Charmaine Gatlin, 52, worked as the nonprofit’s COO for 10 years and was terminated in November. She was indicted on federal charges in May after federal prosecutors said she embezzled millions by submitting false invoices for services that were never provided and receiving kickbacks. Gatlin used some of the money to pay her personal credit card bill and to buy a $15,000 golf cart that was delivered to her home in Weston.
Gatlin entered a plea agreement on Thursday and will be sentenced on Nov. 25, federal court records show.
Gatlin was paid a base salary between $185,000 and $290,000 from 2018 until she was fired in 2024, according to a factual proffer, a document of the facts of the case agreed on by prosecutors and the defense. Her role gave her the authority to approve invoices from vendors that performed any service for the foundation, including at fundraising events.
Between 2019 to 2024, Gatlin and the CEO of a Georgia-based company called American Sound Design submitted false invoices on behalf of the company to the foundation for “audiovisual event services” totaling more than $2 million that never were provided, according to factual proffer. Gatlin instructed the CEO, Yergan Jones, how to falsify the invoices in some instances for “holiday parties” and for a back-to-school event.
Jones paid about half of the payments he received to Gatlin’s personal bank account as kickbacks, the factual proffer said, which were disguised as consulting payments with more false invoices. Jones previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
One of multiple co-conspirators was the operator of a merchandise company based in Miami-Dade County, the factual proffer showed. The foundation ordered merchandise from the company, but Gatlin also personally asked for luxury purses, wallets and clothes.
One email she sent to the co-conspirator in August 2022 purported to be requesting “items for
hospital employee engagement survey,” according to the factual proffer. She gave those items, which included Apple watches, iPads and Gucci and Louis Vuitton bags, to her family and friends. She at times also ordered items that were never requested by staff at the foundation or at Jackson Health.
In one instance, she ordered a rose-gold colored golf cart worth more than $15,000 from a store and submitted an invoice to the foundation about the same time that two of Jackson’s golf carts were being repaired by the same store, the document said. In total, the foundation paid more than $4.3 million for goods and services that weren’t provided or that Gatlin or her relatives received instead.
Jackson Health System previously said in a news release that the “misappropriation” of funds was discovered after a “restructuring” of the foundation’s leadership in 2024.
“Jackson has worked closely with federal authorities throughout every step of this investigation,” the news release said. “At the same time, Jackson Health System implemented additional financial controls and administrative oversight of the Foundation.”
