The civil fraud case surrounding a defunct South Alabama injury clinic keeps growing. Mobile County prosecutors have filed an amended complaint that more than doubles the number of co-defendants in the state’s case against South Alabama Medical & Rehab, adding 14 new defendants and companies spread across at least six states — including an Arizona law firm and an Indiana chiropractic network.
The filing by the Mobile County District Attorney’s white collar crime unit expands what had been a 10-defendant case against SAM&R, the now-shuttered injury clinic that operated on Old Shell Road across from Phillips Middle School, into a sprawling civil action that reaches from the Gulf Coast to Kentucky, Florida, Louisiana, Texas and beyond.
The Entities and Individuals Now Named
The new filing adds telemarketing, management, holding and legal entities that prosecutors allege worked in concert to obtain crash-victim information quickly, solicit patients and steer them into affiliated clinics and law firms. The newly named companies include Media Placement Services, Skyrise Management, Chiropractic Strategies Group, Sterling Shield Legal and Vacek Holdings, along with sister clinics in Huntsville, Homewood and Montgomery.
Newly identified co-conspirators include Douglas Friedman of New Orleans; Brian Culliney of Louisville, Kentucky; Nicolas Probosz of Sarasota, Florida; and Williem Daniel Vacek of Bradenton, Florida. The original case had already named clinic owner Chad Loveless, a Celina, Texas, chiropractor; office manager Stephanie Wilson of Mobile; alleged telemarketer Bryan Walters of Jonesburg, Missouri; and Michael Kent Plambeck of Bradenton, Florida, the chiropractor prosecutors place atop the broader clinic network. The suit also involves multiple lawyers and firms, including Florida attorney Robert Dolinsky and the Dolinsky Law Group, Birmingham attorney Tiffany Tolliver, and the Washington, D.C. law firm Vacek Law Group with its Alabama attorney, John Carradine Baker Sr.
The Blueprint From a 2008 Federal Case
The expansion brings the state’s case closer to a scheme that federal courts already dismantled nearly two decades ago. Plambeck was previously sued by Allstate in 2008 over a nearly identical enterprise prosecuted under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act — a case involving more than 60 affiliated people, companies and lawyers. A Mobile-area doctor and his clinic near the Mobile Police Department headquarters were among the defendants.
A federal jury found the defendants liable under federal and Ohio RICO laws, assessing judgment and fees at roughly $3.86 million, and the Fifth Circuit upheld the result in 2015.
The clearest thread linking the old case to the new one runs through Media Placement Services and Friedman. A 2015 Fifth Circuit opinion identified Plambeck as the owner of Media Placement Services and Friedman as the manager who ran the solicitation side of the earlier multistate enterprise. According to federal courts, Media Placement Services employees purchased police crash reports and searched them for not-at-fault motorists, often targeting lower-income people who had no attorney, then steered them toward chiropractic treatment and lawyers.
Why Crash Reports Are the Center of the Case
At the heart of both the 2008 federal case and the Mobile County lawsuit is the traffic accident report. Alabama crash reports contain names, phone numbers and injury notations, and they become public records that runners and solicitors can mine within days of a wreck. Prosecutors allege the network used that pipeline to reach crash victims almost immediately, offering treatment and legal help before the victims understood their options — a practice regulators call barratry-adjacent solicitation, and one that turns wreck victims into a referral revenue stream.
The amended complaint alleges the new entities layered that operation: telemarketers made the first contact, management companies coordinated the clinics, and affiliated law firms captured the claims. Patients were allegedly shuttled between clinics and lawyers who were part of the same enterprise, inflating medical bills that insurance carriers and at-fault drivers ultimately paid.
A Case That Keeps Growing
The state’s original 10-defendant case was already one of the larger civil fraud actions in Mobile County’s recent history. With the amended complaint, the roster of co-defendants now stands at 24, and prosecutors have signaled the network’s footprint may extend further than any single county’s borders.
Parallel developments show the case radiating outward. A Mobile patient has separately sued law firms tied to the injury clinic, alleging her case was settled without her consent, and the District Attorney’s office has pursued records from firms connected to the operation. A defense lawyer’s withdrawal from the case citing an undisclosed conflict has also complicated the proceedings.
For the defendants, the allegations remain accusations, not findings of liability, and each named party will have the opportunity to answer the complaint in court. But the scale of the amended filing signals that Mobile County prosecutors see the SAM&R clinic not as an isolated bad actor but as the local node of a multistate business model — one they are now trying to unwind six defendants and six states at a time.