A self-professed “rehab mogul” who founded a chain of Southern California drug treatment centers has been found guilty of sexually assaulting patients after plying them with drugs.
On Monday, a Los Angeles jury found Christopher Bathum, 56, guilty of 31 criminal counts, including one count of forcible rape, two counts of sexual penetration by foreign object, two counts of forcible oral copulation, and 12 counts of sexual exploitation, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office announced.
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Prosecutors said that Bathum, who owned and operated 13 “Community Recovery” treatment centers in Los Angeles and Orange counties as well as six in Colorado, sexually exploited female patients in their 20s and 30s between 2014 and 2016 by portraying himself as a father figure. They also claimed that Bathum offered special privileges such as internships, company cars and access to iPhones, in return for sex, as well as gave some of his patients drugs as they were trying to quit their addictions.
“They were easy targets,” Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Reinhold Mueller said during closing arguments, according to the Ocean County Register. “They were perfect victims.”
The five-man, six-woman jury acquitted Bathum of 11 counts of sexual exploitation and one count of offering a controlled substance. They deadlocked on one count of rape by use of drugs and two counts of sexual penetration by a foreign object.
Bathum’s attorney, Carlo Spiga, said that the accussations against his client were a “character attack on Mr. Bathum.” During the trial, he also downplayed the accussations with comments such as “She knew what she was doing at all times” and “How many of them were hitting him up for money?”
Bathum is scheduled to appear in court to set a date for sentencing on April 17. He faces a maximum sentence of 65 years in state prison for the sex conviction and lifetime registration as a sex offender. He is set to appear in court on Tuesday for a pretrial hearing on a separate case for money laundering, grand theft, identity theft and insurance fraud.
Bathum is currently being held on $11 million bail.
