Ex-Jackson exec who stole millions from charity sentenced to more than six years
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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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Confronted with going to prison, a former top executive of the charity arm for Jackson Health System implored a federal judge on Wednesday to give her no time behind bars after pleading guilty to stealing millions of dollars intended for hospital patients.
Charmaine Gatlin, the former chief operating officer of the Jackson Health Foundation, cited a litany of personal traumas — from being molested as a young woman to her son’s autism to her husband’s prostate cancer — while apologizing to U.S. District Judge Beth Bloom.
“Judge Bloom, what I did was wrong and out of unhealed trauma, desperation, stupidity, and lack of faith in God,” Gatlin wrote in her five-page letter.
“I am truly sorry for what I did. ... I’m sorry for putting the Foundation and the hospital in this position,” she said during her sentencing hearing, vowing to pay back the millions she stole.
Bloom showed little sympathy for Gatlin, 52, as she sentenced her to a prison term of six years and eight months — the punishment sought by prosecutor Elizabeth Young with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Miami. The judge also ordered Gatlin to surrender to federal prison authorities immediately.
“It was a scheme that was calculated and motivated solely by greed,” Bloom said, noting that Gatlin, who was fired by the Foundation last fall, “displayed a complete absence of integrity.”
Gatlin’s sentence stemmed from her swindling about $7 million from the Foundation over a five-year period, using the funds to buy high-fashion items from Louis Vuitton, Gucci and others, a membership at a tony golf club, and paying thousands to a barbecue joint in her Georgia hometown.
Gatlin’s defense attorney, David Howard, asked the judge for a lower sentence — five years — saying that while “she breached the trust of patients, donors, colleagues, and the institution ... her offense was committed during a period of extreme personal instability and overwhelming emotional strain.”
Howard also tried to challenge the prosecutor’s point that Gatlin played a “leadership role” in her relations with the Foundation’s vendors. He was trying to lower her prison term under federal sentencing guidelines, which call for 6 1/2 to 8 years. But the judge flatly rejected his argument.
“None of this could have happened without [Gatlin],” Bloom said, highlighting that she was “the one who signed off on each fraudulent invoice.”
READ MORE: She embezzled millions from Miami’s public hospital charity. Here’s how she did it
In September, Gatlin pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit wire fraud, admitting that she approved $4.3 million in falsified invoices for an inner circle of Foundation vendors between 2019 and 2024.
READ MORE: Jackson Foundation’s Gatlin pleads guilty to bilking millions in charity funds
Kickbacks top $1 million
During her billing scheme, she admitted pocketing more than $1 million in kickbacks from a Georgia audiovisual contractor who received more than $2 million in fraudulent payments from the Foundation. He provided no services at events for the supposed benefit of Jackson Health System, which operates the county’s taxpayer-subsidized hospital network.
Young, the prosecutor, told the judge that after further analysis, FBI investigators determined that Gatlin actually stole more than $6.9 million from the Foundation as she carried out her scheme of approving expenses and payments for several vendors right up until her suspension as COO in October of last year.
“There is no sign that Gatlin will be prepared ... to make a meaningful restitution payment to Jackson’s foundation,” Young said in court papers and in court.
Her lawyer, Howard, said in court that she borrowed $30,000 to start paying back the Foundation.
The Foundation, with about 15 employees, a $4 million operating budget and $12 million in donations during Gatlin’s last year of employment, took a big hit.
She hurt patients: Jackson CEO
“While stealing from any charity is immoral and inexcusable, stealing from a charity that supports a public hospital system is especially reprehensible,” Carlos Migoya, the longtime CEO of Jackson Health System, told Judge Bloom during Wednesday’s hearing.
“She did not just harm Jackson Health System and the Foundation,” he said. “She also hurt real people, with real needs, who depend on Jackson for care, compassion and survival — people like the 8-year-old girl receiving chemotherapy, the father waiting for a lung transplant, the teacher undergoing rehabilitation after a traumatic brain injury.”
Gatlin, who was arrested in Georgia in May, was originally accused in an indictment of fleecing $3.6 million from the Foundation — including raiding a restricted fund for Jackson burn victims. But the Herald has learned from invoices obtained through a public records request that her fraudulent billing activity easily surpassed that figure.
Her guilty plea followed that of an Atlanta businessman, who confessed in federal court in August that he fraudulently billed $2.1 million to the Foundation without providing any services — then kicked back half of his payments to Gatlin.
Yergan Jones, 63, pleaded guilty to conspiring with Gatlin by falsifying dozens of invoices for purported fundraising events between 2019 and 2024. He is scheduled for sentencing on Monday, Dec. 15. Gatlin came to know Jones when they had worked on charitable projects in Atlanta for her former employer there before the Foundation hired her in 2014.
In a plea deal, Jones now faces between two and three years in prison and has agreed to pay back the $2.1 million that he received from the Foundation.
He also faces a forfeiture judgment of $1 million, which accounts for half of the payments that he and his company, American Sound Design, kept after being paid by the Foundation. Both Gatlin and Jones crafted dozens of fake invoices for no-show work at events that either took place or didn’t happen at all.
Before Jackson Health System officials learned of the alleged scheme, Gatlin was being considered as one of two candidates for the CEO job at the Foundation, the Herald reported.
Fired from Jackson
But in October of last year, Gatlin was put on paid administrative leave while an internal investigation “related to potential misconduct” got underway. As the Foundation’s second in command, she was making about $300,000 a year.
The following month, Gatlin was “terminated for cause” by the Foundation’s chairman. Her termination letter, obtained by the Herald, did not elaborate.
Jackson officials alerted the FBI and federal prosecutors.
Gatlin was accused of authorizing Foundation funds to pay not only Jones’ company in Atlanta, but also a Miami-Dade company that sold designer goods and a Broward event-planning company that created videos, a website and other services for her daughter’s softball team, according to her indictment.
Gatlin was also accused of using the Foundation’s money to buy school supplies that were delivered to a religious organization in Riceboro, Georgia, where she lives with her husband.
That wasn’t the only Riceboro entity that benefitted from her generosity. A barbecue spot in Riceboro, her hometown, billed the Foundation $86,070 between 2018 and mid-2020, bills that Gatlin approved, Jackson records show. The meals were invoiced as food for wellness fairs, family fun days and other Foundation events.
The Foundation paid the bills; no one at the Foundation got any barbecue.
LV, Gucci and golf cart
Court records also show she used the money to buy a Louis Vuitton bag for $4,350 and Gucci Tennis 1977 sneakers for $820, among other designer goods. She also had a $15,617 rose-gold golf cart delivered to her Weston home, and used Foundation funds to pay more than $20,000 for a golf membership with the Club at Weston Hills in Broward
Her billing scheme, however, extended well beyond vendors in South Florida, according to the indictment and other court records.
The indictment alleges Jones’ company, American Sound Design, submitted invoices to Gatlin that were for “audiovisual services that did not occur” at Jackson Health System or the Foundation. Instead, those services were provided by his company to a civic organization in Atlanta, the indictment says.
The Herald confirmed that the organization is 100 Black Men of America, with chapters nationwide including South Florida. Gatlin had worked there as an executive before she was hired at the Foundation.
On Jan. 7, 2024, Jones emailed Gatlin’s personal email with a draft invoice for extending audiovisual equipment services at the Jackson “Holiday Parties” for two “additional days” at a cost of $50,172.50, court records show. The following day, Gatlin responded to Jones: “Get [the bill] to $58,477. When you email it over ask for the status of the payment.”
On Jan. 16, 2024, Gatlin wired that same amount to the bank account of Jones’ company, which did not provide the invoiced services at Jackson or the Foundation. Two days later, Jones wired a kickback of about $25,000 to Gatlin’s personal bank account — then, Jones made a $20,000 payment on his American Express card using the Jackson funds.
Kitchen renovation
During Wednesday’s hearing, Young, the prosecutor, mocked Gatlin’s letter claiming she defrauded her nonprofit employer to help pay for her and her family’s medical bills, pointing out that she used the stolen money to buy luxury goods, a new golf cart, and trips to Disney World and the Virgin Islands.
Young also said that after the Foundation fired her, Gatlin didn’t come clean or repay the charity. Instead, she got a part-time job with 100 Black Men of America in Atlanta and moved back to Riceboro.
Young said Gatlin continued to spend her ill-gotten money on herself and her family, adding that when FBI agents arrested her in May, she was in the process of renovating her mother’s home in Riceboro, near Savannah.
Young showed a photo of the mother’s kitchen in the courtroom, noting for the judge: “The kitchen was being renovated. There were marble countertops and new appliances.”
She closed by saying that Gatlin’s request in her letter to the judge for no prison time “would be a slap in the face to this community.”
This story was originally published December 10, 2025 at 1:56 PM.
