Sober-home fraudster Kenneth Bailynson says he didn't lie to jurors. His texts say otherwise.

MIAMI — When confronted with text messages in which he admitted to lying about Dr. Mark Agresti's role in the insurance scheme that landed them both in prison, Kenneth Bailynson balked. He didn't really lie to jurors, he said. He only said he lied about it afterward.

Bailynson orchestrated the men's multimillion dollar grift but was sentenced to fewer years in prison for it thanks to his damning testimony against the West Palm Beach doctor. He returned to federal court this month to defend that testimony, telling a judge that while he's probably told 10,000 lies, his statements under oath were not among them.

U.S. District Judge Rodolfo Ruiz waited until Bailynson left the stand before saying he "has almost zero credibility as a human being."

“I don’t trust half of the stuff coming out of his mouth," the judge said. "I didn’t then, and I certainly don’t now.”

If Bailynson lied to jurors, it's up to Ruiz to decide whether the fabricated testimony was responsible for Agresti's guilty verdict in 2022. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jim Hayes and Amanda Perwin maintain that they could have convicted Agresti without Bailynson's help, but defense attorneys Richard Klugh and Greg Rosenfeld say the opposite is true.

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Armed with text messages in which the prosecutors' star witness said he invented part of his testimony "because the government did not have anything else on the doctor," Klugh and Rosenfeld may get another shot at clearing Agresti's name.

The judge held the two-day hearing in early June to hear from a handful of people Bailynson confided in about Agresti's conviction — a group made up of prison inmates, longtime friends and a woman he met on a dating site. One said Bailynson spoke openly about his plan to pin the blame on Agresti years before Bailynson's crimes ever came to light.

"Bailynson is the one who should be suffering the consequences," said Matthew Noel, who was convicted alongside the doctor and sober-home fraudster. "Not Dr. Agresti."

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A grand jury indicted Noel, Bailynson and Agresti in 2018 after federal investigators cracked down on Good Decisions Sober Living in West Palm Beach. There, investigators say the men scammed insurers out of millions of dollars under the guise of helping patients overcome their addictions.

The scam involved a network of unscrupulous treatment facilities, sham drug tests and kickbacks for the doctor willing to sign off on them. Bailynson, who owned Good Decisions, said Agresti signed off on orders for high-priced and unnecessary drug tests in exchange for under-the-table payments.

Testifying in his own defense, Agresti said he wanted patients' urine tested often to deter them from using drugs — not to line his own pockets. However, Bailynson's testimony about the covert cash payments helped cast him as an architect of the scam rather than as someone pulled unwittingly into it.

Defense attorneys Rosenfeld and Klugh said they were "completely dumbfounded" by Bailynson's testimony, blaming the surprise kickback allegation for creating a "fast track" to Agresti's conviction. They argued that the kickbacks turned a case of medical negligence into one of criminal intent — just like Agresti knew it would.

At this month's hearing, Rosenfeld presented the judge with a series of texts Bailynson sent in the wake of Agresti's conviction. One included a link to a Palm Beach Post article about the doctor's trial, along with a message: "I buried the guy."

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Noel, who was Good Decisions' director of operations, testified this month that he reunited with Bailynson in a Pensacola prison. He said he began taking secret, detailed notes each time Bailynson bragged about fabricating the cash payments to make Agresti "look like he had more blood on his hands."

He recalled one conversation in which Bailynson allegedly said he noticed Agresti's wife in the courtroom gallery and tailored his testimony accordingly. With her in mind, Bailynson said he told jurors that the doctor wanted the money in cash to keep his wife from finding out.

"He thought it was funny," Noel said. "He almost fell over laughing, because he's trying to ruin this guy's relationship with his wife."

Noel's notes and Bailynson's texts helped spur Agresti's release from prison on bond just months after his conviction. In the texts, Bailynson said both he and Agresti were innocent. He reversed course when prosecutors confronted him, promising that he had never lied to them, "notwithstanding the fact that he was a frequent liar in his personal life."

Bailynson could be charged with perjury and obstruction of justice if the opposite is true. He told the judge this month that he only pretended he committed perjury because he didn't want other inmates to know he'd helped the government.

Ruiz noted that this reason did not explain why he told people outside of prison that he lied to jurors. Bailynson said he did so to bolster his image, maintain his innocence and "get laid."

Hayes and Perwin argued at the conclusion of the hearing that even if Bailynson invented the cash payments, that part of his testimony alone didn't convince jurors of Agresti's guilt, nor did it form the basis of any charge against him. The judge did not immediately rule either way.

Hannah Phillips is a journalist covering public safety and criminal justice at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach her at hphillips@pbpost.com.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: West Palm doctor may get new trial after sober home owner lies unravel