Nurse facing new charges connected to targeting sober living home residents
By Ford Hatchett
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PHOENIX (KNXV) — An Arizona nurse is charged with writing fake patient notes in a scam targeting Native American populations worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
A 52-year-old Rita Anagho is facing a felony conspiracy charge and another felony charge accused of signing fake patient notes and paying $677,250 to a woman operating a house posing as a sober living home, which was actually a sham sometimes sending the patients back into addiction.
“ I want accountability i’ll say that over and over I want accountability for every person that was affected by this,” said Reva Stewart an advocate with Turtle Island Women Warriors helping victims of the scams. “They were brought down with belief they were gonna get help. And now they’re going back with a fentanyl addiction
Court filings allege Anagho, operated in Phoenix – as “Doctor Rita” providing clinic and mental health services to patients often coming from places marketed as sober living homes but that were not.
Over a ten-month span, bank records show Anagho paid $677,250 to a woman operating a house posing as a sober living home – to send patients to Anagho’s clinics.
She had licenses in Tennessee and North Carolina as well as Arizona. ABC15 tried to get ahold of Anagho Wednesday but was not able to.
Court filings allege Anagho preyed upon vulnerable populations, mainly homeless Native American tribal members.
Turtle Island Women Warriors’ Stewart and Raquel Moody work to help communities targeted by scams like these. Moody is a victim of a similar scam and she and Stewart often hand out care packs to folks on the street, sometimes paying fares on their own to get victims back home.
“It’s nowhere near ending and we have a lot more unsheltered relatives on the street,” Stewart said. “We’re all the same regardless. Regardless what color we are, we’re all the same. We should all be taking care of each other instead of looking at them and saying ‘I can’t help them.’”
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