Atlanta man accused of scheming with Jackson exec to bilk millions faces conspiracy charge
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Betrayal of Trust
Former Jackson Health Foundation COO Charmaine Gatlin pled guilty to bilking millions in charity funds. A look at the investigation.
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A businessman accused of playing a key supporting role in an elaborate scheme to bilk millions of dollars from the fundraising arm of Jackson Health System faces a conspiracy charge on Tuesday in Miami federal court.
Yergan Jones, who heads an audio visual company in Atlanta, is the latest person to be charged in the alleged conspiracy with Charmaine Gatlin, the former chief operating officer of Jackson Health Foundation, which raises money for Miami-Dade County’s public hospital system.
Authorities say Gatlin, 52, and Jones, 63, falsified invoices to make it look like Jones’ business, American Sound Design, provided about $2 million in purported services for fundraising events that were paid for by Jackson Health Foundation. Jones and his company kept half of the Foundation’s payments and kicked back the other $1 million to Gatlin — money that the former Weston resident spent on Louis Vuitton and Gucci handbags and other luxury goods, court records show.
Jones’ defense attorney, Hector Flores, declined to comment. According to sources familiar with his case, Jones is cooperating with federal prosecutors and eventually plans to plead guilty to the single conspiracy charge, which carries up to five years in prison.
Gatlin’s defense lawyer, David Howard, also declined to comment. Gatlin pleaded not guilty to multiple conspiracy and fraud charges in June in Miami federal court. But sources familiar with her case say she’s planning to change her plea to guilty in a deal with prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Prosecutors say Jones, Gatlin and others schemed to “unlawfully enrich themselves” by submitting “false and fraudulent invoices” to the Jackson Health Foundation “for goods and services that were not provided to the Foundation, did not benefit the Foundation, and benefitted themselves instead of the Foundation.”
In one exchange, Gatlin contacted Jones from her personal email on Jan. 8, 2024, telling him to increase his bill for audiovisual equipment at Jackson’s “Holiday Parties” to $58,477, according to a charging document filed against Jones. A week later, Gatlin wired that same amount to the bank account of Jones’ company, ASD. That same day, Jones wired a kickback of about $25,000 to Gatilin’s personal bank account — then, a few days later, Jones made a $20,000 payment on his American Express card using the Jackson funds.
“To conceal the kickbacks,” the charging document says, they “created false invoices making it appear as though Gatlin did ‘event management’ for ASD events” at Jackson Health System or the Foundation.
Atlanta Connection
Before Jackson Health System officials learned of the alleged scheme, Gatlin was making about $300,000 as the Foundation’s chief operating officer and was well on her way to becoming its top executive. But in late October, she was put on paid administrative leave while an internal investigation “related to potential misconduct” got underway. In early November, she was “terminated for cause” by the Foundation’s chairman. Her termination letter, obtained by the Miami Herald, did not elaborate.
Jackson officials alerted the FBI and federal prosecutors. In May, Gatlin, a Foundation executive over the past decade, was arrested on charges of fleecing $3.6 million from her former employer, fabricating fake invoices from vendors including Jones and receiving kickbacks from them. Her alleged defrauding of the Jackson Health Foundation, however, extended well beyond Miami, according to an indictment.
It stretched all the way to Atlanta, where an unnamed “audiovisual company” and a “co-conspirator” suspected of collaborating with Gatlin submitted $2 million in “false and fraudulent” invoices to the Foundation for purported services that were instead provided to a civic organization in Georgia’s capital, the indictment says. While the indictment doesn’t identify the company or the co-conspirator, the Herald learned last month from multiple sources that Gatlin allegedly schemed with Jones, the CEO of American Sound Design in Atlanta. Public records obtained by the Herald show Jones’ company submitted dozens of invoices to the Jackson Health Foundation that Gatlin approved between 2019 and 2024.
The indictment alleges the company’s invoices were for “audiovisual services that did not occur” at Jackson Health System or the Foundation. Instead, the Herald confirmed those services were provided by Jones’ company to the civic organization in Atlanta, which is 100 Black Men of America, with chapters nationwide including South Florida.
“On at least one occasion, Jones provided services to [100 Black Men of America], but Jones and Gatlin made it appear on the invoice as though the services were being provided to the Foundation,” says the document charging Jones, which didn’t include details of the charges.
In a statement, the 100 Black Men of America said it was not aware of Gatlin’s alleged kickback scheme with Jones and his audiovisual company, including billing the Jackson Health Foundation for services that his firm instead provided to the Atlanta organization.
Jones provided those services to the youth mentoring group for its annual conferences between 2019 and 2024 under a different audiovisual company, American Electronic Entertainment, 100 Black Men of America confirmed.
In fact, 100 Black Men of America said it directly paid Jones’ company more than $500,000 for his work, but the organization did not provide details of the payments.
“100 Black Men of America, Inc. has no knowledge of Ms. Gatlin’s alleged receipt of cash payments or fraudulent invoices being submitted by Ms. Gatlin or any other vendors in the indictment involving Jackson Health Foundation,” the organization said in the statement provided to the Herald, adding that “Gatlin has never been paid by the 100 BMOA as a ‘go-between’ to then pay vendors for services provided to 100 BMOA.”
Gatlin had worked for 100 Black Men of America from 2009 to 2014 before Jackson’s Foundation hired her a decade ago. During her tenure at Jackson, she continued to work with the Atlanta organization as an unpaid volunteer. After the Foundation dismissed Gatlin last November, 100 Black Men of America hired her in January as a contractor for its annual conference in 2025 —but fired her in May when the organization said it learned about her indictment.
“We are fully cooperating with law enforcement and will continue to do so until this matter is concluded,” the organization said.
Follow the Money
Gatlin, a University of Florida graduate with a bachelor’s degree in French, was arrested on May 21 in a town near Savannah where she now lives. The indictment, filed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Young, charged her with a single count of conspiring with other individuals to commit wire fraud, 26 counts of wire fraud and five counts of money laundering. If convicted, the charges carry sentences that could send her to prison for years.
Gatlin is accused of authorizing Jackson Health Foundation funds to pay not only Jones’ audiovisual company in Atlanta but also a store that sold designer goods and an event planning company in South Florida that created videos, a website and other services for a family member’s softball team in Broward County, the indictment says.
She’s also accused of using the Foundation’s money to buy school supplies that were delivered to a church in Riceboro, Georgia, where she lives with her husband.
After her arrest, Gatlin was granted a $30,000 bond. Court records show that one of the conditions of her bond was not to contact four contractors, including Jones, who “were paid” by the Jackson Health Foundation based on “purported invoices for goods and services approved by” Gatlin, according to the indictment.
By far, Gatlin’s dealings with Jones dominated her alleged criminal activity, the Herald has learned from sources and court records.
Financial documents obtained by the Herald show that Jones’ company, American Sound Design, submitted about 40 invoices to the Foundation that Gatlin approved between 2019 and 2024 for services that his firm says were provided to the Jackson Health Foundation.
But Jones is better known as the president of AEE Productions, which on its website claims to have done business for major corporations, such as Coca-Cola, Delta Airlines and Walmart, along with NASCAR and 100 Black Men of America. The Jackson Health Foundation was also one of its clients, according to a testimonial by Gatlin.
“Working with AEE Productions is always an exciting time for me. They listen to my ideas and help me create ‘the wow’ that I am looking for during each event,” reads an online testimonial by Gatlin on AEE Productions’ website. “I have been working with Yergan and his team for over 15 years and each event is better than the last one.
Financial records obtained by the Herald show the Jackson Health Foundation received millions of dollars worth of invoices ranging from $5,900 to $81,500 each from Jones’ company.
American Sound Design claimed in those bills that it provided lighting, sound, staging and production management services for events at Jackson Health System or the Foundation, the invoices show.
But the Gatlin indictment says that Jones’ company, though not identified by name, never provided any of these services. It’s unclear from the indictment how many of these events hosted by the Foundation even took place.
This story was originally published August 8, 2025 at 5:30 AM.
