Owner Says Addiction Center Will Fit Nicely Into Chatham; Some Question His Practices

Michael Osborne wants you to know that his planned gambling addiction treatment center at the Parrot Mill Inn is not a place where alcoholics, robbers and thugs will come to roost. It's a place, he says, where the lawyers, accountants and sports stars who seek help for gambling-related problems are carefully screened before they are admitted into the facility—their families, he said, are often heavily involved in footing the bill for the $20,000 the program costs, and are often supportive of the reformation efforts.

In a sit-down interview with Chatham Patch at the Parrot Mill Inn last Tuesday, Osborne said he wants to work to clear up what he called "sheer ignorance" in the opinions of some Chatham residents who are concerned about the proposed facility, which will lease its space from what is now a bed and breakfast. And he responded to questions about his lack of a counseling license and accusations from a former business associate who says he failed to pay his bills on time.

"I'm upset that people are speaking on things that they're not aware of," said Osborne, who owns the company—called Tricare Treatment Services—that will run the facility.

A former patient of Osborne's—Lesa Densmore—was also present during Tuesday's interview. Densmore said she eventually hopes to work with Osborne, who is a former gambling addict himself, at the new facility.

The Operation

Osborne is adamant that he will run a tight ship. The gambling addiction treatment center he ran in Baltimore—called Harbour Pointe—was located in the heart of the city, and participants were free to roam around as they pleased. That facility had nine beds. The Chatham facility will have six. In reducing the facility's size, he said, he is trying to improve his method of operation.

In this case, he said, he wants to assure Chatham residents that the facility will, in essence, be in lockdown at all times. The four to six people who will be his patients at any given time will not be allowed to leave the inn for, say, a medical or dental emergency unless they are supervised by someone on the center's staff.

"One of my options was to, perhaps, house my [employees] here and do my treatment at another facility across the street," Osborne said. "I didn't want people going back and forth. I wanted them here. It's important for these people to stay in one place, because we're talking about treating high-profile people whose careers could be in jeopardy if it's announced that they're being treated for compulsive gambling addiction.

"I'm talking professional athletes, doctors, attorneys, accountants, white collar Wall Street bankers," he continued. "To be able to be in one place and not have to walk back and forth and be at risk of being sighted is a big deal for them and the security of their anonymity."

Each patient who is admitted to the facility, he said, goes through an extensive phone assessment to ensure that gambling is their major issue—not alcoholism or any other addiction. If they pass that screening process, he said, a psychiatrist will meet with the potential patient to ensure they are the right fit for the facility.

Insurance, he said, generally does not pay the $20,000 the four- to six-week treatment program costs. The person or the person's family generally does.

Once a patient is admitted to the facility, he said, they undergo treatment seven days a week. They meet with psychologists, psychiatrists, addiction counselors and social workers that he said would all be licensed in their fields by the state. The program also contains a wellness component, which includes massage, acupuncture treatments and yoga.

Families will often come to attend sessions with the patient three or four weeks into the program, according to Osborne.

A Community's Reaction

There has been vocal opposition to the clinic within Chatham at both Planning Board and Borough Council meetings in recent weeks. Some residents who live near the clinic have said they would rather see the historic building torn down than have gambling addicts on their block.

They have appealed to the borough's Zoning Board of Adjustment in an effort to thwart Osborne's application, saying that it should not be considered a continued, permitted use of the bed and breakfast building. At a meeting last week, the borough Planning Board decided to table any discussion regarding the matter until the Zoning Board acts on the appeal. The Zoning Board could discuss the matter at its next meeting on March 24.

Densmore, who hopes to work with Osborne at his Chatham facility in the future, said the considerable panic going around town is simply unfounded.

"What people are fearing in this town is me," she said, referring to her own battle with gambling addiction. "This is a place of hope. Second chances. Healing. There's no forced treatment, and I think what people have to understand is that it's people like me. There's a family dynamic involved with this. There's a screening process involved with this. It's for people who say: 'I've got something going on and I want help with that.'

"It's not as though we're going to have a bunch of psychos running around the building," she said. "And I think that's what people's fears are."

Osborne, for his part, said he would like to meet with people opposed to the clinic "if they are willing to listen."

"I understand what these people are saying," he said. "I'm not angry. I understand their fears. I understand their concerns."

He said he wants to create a neighborhood advisory board for his business where he would meet with community members three to five times a month so their voices can be heard.

"I can't say that I wouldn't be that same neighbor raising the same concerns just because of the fear of the unknown," Osborne said. "That's what I'm trying to establish today."

A Complicated Man

Osborne is the first to admit that his own gambling addiction ruined his life, but he says it is his success in dealing with the problem that gives him special insights into how to help others facing the same issues.

"It is my past that really adds a successful component to what I do with the treatment program," he said. "I don't just sympathize with these people and know where they've been. I can understand it."

While a compulsive gambler, Osborne worked in real estate for Maryland companies and stole from some of his clients.

He was fined $126,500 by the Maryland Real Estate Commission from July 2004 to June 2006 for embezzling his clients' money, according to documents on the Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation's Web site. The documents say his real estate license was revoked at one point. In various articles and public relations documents, he has said he was arrested multiple times, and according to a 2008 Associated Press article, he even contemplated suicide.

But he attended gambling addiction rehabilitation classes at Harbour Pointe—then called Harbour Center—in an attempt to regain his life that, by his own account, was "a wreck." The one-on-one sessions he was given at the facility worked wonders, he said. Finally clean, he purchased the facility in early 2005 and treated his patients with the same sort of one-on-one therapy he had received.

"I don't know where I would be today without the luxury of treatment," he said.

Questions About Baltimore

But two people who dealt with Osborne at his previous treatment facility in Baltimore questioned some of his business methods.

Joanna Franklin is the president of the Maryland Council of Compulsive Gambling and has worked in the field for about 30 years. She said that Osborne's facility wasn't licensed to practice in the state of Maryland, and said she did not refer people to Harbour Pointe as a result. "There was one too many complaint from folks coming out," she said.

When facilities are not licensed, she said, people who attend them have no agency to complain to if something goes wrong. She acknowledged that Osborne "means well." But when it comes to getting licensed, she said, Osborne "didn't have his ducks in order."

Franklin also questioned how quickly Osborne changed from a compulsive gambler to someone offering treatment. "I would be concerned about a recovering person who's trying to run a business and make it fly," she said.

Osborne said he feels Franklin's comments stem from a territorial threat she felt when he created the Problem Gambling Council of Maryland while Franklin was running the Maryland Council.

He added that because he brings in licensed professionals to work at the facility, patients could potentially file a complaint with the board with which a particular psychologist or medical health professional is licensed.

And New Jersey has no specific procedures for licensing gambling addiction clinics, according to Council on Compulsive Gambling of New Jersey Executive Director Donald Weinbaum.

Osborne could pursue a license for drug and addiction rehabilitation—something he has already said he does not want to do—which would make him eligible to receive state funding, Weinbaum said.

Osborne said during Tuesday's interview that regardless of whether he is licensed or not, his clients still receive good treatment, and said the fact that he hires licensed professionals to provide care and treatment legitimizes its existence.

"I'm interested in effective treatment and a high success rate as opposed to people coming through here with state money and not offering what I feel is the best we should be offering," he said. "It's more about the treatment we provide."

Business Disputes

But there are others who criticize Osborne's business methods. John Maroon, president of Marriottsville, Md.-based Maroon Public Relations, said his firm did Osborne's public relations for a number of months. Toward the end of his contract, he said, Osborne defaulted on a payment.

Maroon said he sued Osborne for the $15,720 he said he was owed. According to court documents, Maroon won a judgment against Osborne in Maryland District Court in Baltimore City last May 28 for the $15,720, for $2,358 in legal fees and for $70 in additional costs.

As of yet, he said, he hasn't received the money. "I just can't collect from the guy because he skipped town," Maroon said. Harbour Pointe closed in late August.

Osborne twice said during the interview last week that the matter was still in the courts, and said he had let Maroon PR go because "they weren't delivering what they promised me." The matter with Maroon was a business dispute more than anything else, he said, and not a matter of him running his business in an unsustainable fashion.

He has made no secret of the fact that he has been in debt at various points throughout his life, Osborne said. But he said missteps he has made in the past have nothing to do with the clinic he will run in Chatham.

"If you research my entire past, you'd probably run out of space online to write stuff," he said. "Again, I've not hidden from my past, but how past business things or disagreements can come to perhaps cause me problems with doing what I'm trying to do here, I mean, that's not [relevant]."

A Chatham Future?

Osborne said he decided to move to New Jersey to be closer to his fiancée, who lives in the state, and his now two-month old newborn.

Regardless of Osborne's past, one person who believes in what he's trying to do is Toby Kennedy, who is the son of Parrot Mill Inn owner Betsey Kennedy.

"Throughout the years, I never knew who stayed here. You give me $150, you can stay at the Parrot Mill Inn," he said. "With Tricare, we will know who's here."

Osborne said he hopes to one day live in Chatham and be welcomed into the Chatham community that has appeared, up to now, to be opposed to his business plan.

"I want to work with this community," he said. "I want to be a part of this community."

That would be fine by New Jersey gambling addiction expert Weinbaum, who deals with compulsive gamblers throughout the state day in and day out.

"There is a great deal of need in terms of treatment for gambling problems in New Jersey, and we need as many people as possible interested in trying to help compulsive gamblers in facilities around the state," he said. "And this particular facility, if it comes together, would be a first."