UPDATED::She said she’d free them from addiction. She turned them into her personal servants | Reveal

UPDATE:: Labor Department officials told her to start paying workers. She ignored them, and they let her get away with it

For years, Jennifer Warren openly flouted federal labor law. She forced patients in her drug rehab program to work 80 hour weeks for free as caregivers in assisted living facilities across North Carolina.

Then in 2013, a reckoning came. The federal Department of Labor told Warren she was breaking the law and ordered her to pay her patients minimum wage and overtime for their work. Warren promised to comply in the future.

But that never happened, according to federal records obtained by Reveal. For at least five more years, Warren ignored labor laws and forced her patients to work for free to fund her lavish lifestyle. The records show no indication that the Department of Labor ever followed up.

The Department of Labor’s botched crackdown is yet another example of how Warren has managed to dodge accountability, despite years of abuse and numerous attempts by state and federal authorities to reel her in. Each time, the investigations largely went nowhere, and Warren escaped unscathed.

Jennifer Warren has spent years recruiting the poor and desperate to her drug rehabilitation program in the mountains outside Asheville, North Carolina.

She promised them counseling and recovery for free. When they arrived, she put them to work 16 hours a day for no pay at adult care homes for the elderly and disabled.

Thrust into the homes with little training or sleep, the rehab participants changed diapers, bathed patients and sometimes dispensed the same prescription drugs that sent them spiraling into addiction in the first place.

For some, the temptation proved too great. They snorted prescription pain pills, swallowed droplets of morphine from used medical syringes and peeled fentanyl pain patches off patients and sucked them to get high.

Then there were the allegations of assault. At least seven participants from Warren’s program, Recovery Connections Community, have been accused of sexual misconduct or assault of patients at the homes. Former participants and workers said no one reported the incidents to social services, as required by law. The accused continued working or were simply transferred to another care home.

“There’s a whole lot in the program that’s covered up,” said Charles Polk, who completed Warren’s program in 2017 for alcohol addiction. “The only thing she thinks about is the money.”

She said she’d free them from addiction. She turned them into her personal servants | Reveal