An Orange County rehab mogul was slapped with a dozen charges Monday for allegedly doling out almost $175K in kickbacks to "body brokers", those who rope in new addicts to his trio of sober pads. Scott Raffa, 57, the honcho behind Sober Partners Network sober living homes, was cuffed this weekend at LAX and dragged to a courtroom in Santa Ana for a legal showdown over the sketchy scheme, officials say.

Raffa, a Newport Beach resident, is accused of lining the pockets of these brokers to the tune of thousands per head, authorities claimed, each patient scoring him insurance cash at one of his spots—Sober Partners Waterfront Recovery Center, Sober Partners Reef House, or Sober Partners Beach House, the U.S. Attorney's Office reported.

The indictment, unsealed April 10, details how Raffa and the middlemen allegedly hammered out their dirty deals over encrypted messages, only coughing up the dough if the patients clocked in at least 21 days of treatment, banking on the big bucks from their insurance companies, per officials.

In what the feds describe as a covert cash-for-clients racket running from April 2020 to October 2021, Raffa is said to have stealthily signed phony contracts with the brokers to mask the true nature of these payouts, with the alleged handouts totaling roughly $174,600—a conspiracy now laying bare in the indictment's court documents.

The fallout for Raffa, if the court finds him on the wrong side of the law, could mean a harsh bid behind bars—with each count potentially locking him away for a decade, investigators from the FBI, who are spearheading this probe, suggested. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Benjamin R. Barron and Nandor Kiss are the legal eagles taking the lead on tossing the book at him, according to the Justice Department's press release.