NaphCare Pays $875,000 to Settle New York License Violations, Banned from State for Five Years
by Chuck Sharman
In an agreement signed on March 26, 2026, private prison and jail medical contractor NaphCare paid an $875,000 fine to the state of New York to settle charges that the company violated state licensing laws and was operating illegally. As part of the settlement, the Alabama-based firm also agreed not to do business in the state for five years.
In 2020, NaphCare created a subsidiary, Proactive Healthcare Medicine PLLC, to execute a contract with Onondaga County to provide medical care to detainees jailed at the County Justice Center (OCJC) and the Hillbrook Juvenile Detention facility, both in Syracuse. Under New York Business Corporation Law (BCL) Article 15 and New York Limited Liability Company Law (LLCL) Article 12, a PLLC like Proactive is one of two types of businesses that may be licensed to practice medicine in the state—not a Limited Liability Corp. (LLC) like NaphCare. Additionally, the business must be wholly owned and controlled by physicians licensed in the state.
At the time it signed the jail contract, Proactive listed its owner as CEO Rita Armitage, who lived in Alabama but was licensed to practice ophthalmology in New York. Proactive’s President and Corporate Secretary was Alabama attorney Brad McLane, who was not a licensed New York physician but NaphCare’s CEO. Proactive also used NaphCare’s Alabama address, and its healthcare policy and procedures manuals “tracked” NaphCare’s manuals, New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) later found.
According to its contract with the County, Proactive promised to employ New York-licensed telehealth providers and to rely on NaphCare only for “management and administrative services.” In practice, however, the services were provided by employees on NaphCare’s STATCare teams in Alabama—who were not licensed in New York and who never saw detainees, instead ordering their treatment from reviews of electronic records. Proactive provided onsite nurses to implement these treatment plans, along with a few physicians and “mid-level providers”; however, the nurses had no authority to change the treatment orders that were sent from Alabama.
This shady arrangement might have escaped scrutiny but for a predictable spate of deaths at OCJC. One was the death of an infant born to detainee Cheree Byrd, who waited over 30 hours after her water broke before she was transported to a hospital, where her baby died of preterm premature rupture of the membranes. Detainee Kevin Gillooly, 65, received only “intermittent” treatment for his high blood pressure before dying of cardiovascular disease—after NaphCare staffers mixed up his medication and failed to send him to a specialist. A third detainee, Angela Peng, 27, got no care at all before her fatal suicide, James’ investigators found. A suit filed over her death was settled for $750,000, as reported elsewhere in this issue. [See: PLN, May 2026, p.50.]
The same team documented numerous violations of state law by NaphCare during its three-year contract with the County, including practicing medicine illegally and engaging in deceptive business practices. In the Assurance of Discontinuance that the firm signed, it agreed to pay the hefty fine and observe a five-year ban on doing business in the state. Proactive PLLC has also been dissolved, the New York Times reported. See: In re James v. NaphCare LLC, Att’y. Gen. of N.Y. Healthcare Bur., Assurance No. 26-011.
Additional source: The New York Times
As a digital subscriber to Prison Legal News, you can access full text and downloads for this and other premium content.
Already a subscriber? Login