PIERCE COUNTY, Wash. — Brett Ryan hit the floor hard when he slumped over and died on the second floor of his mother’s Sumner home in February of last year.

“I was laying in bed, starting to go to sleep, and I heard a thud,” said Judy Russo. A short time later, emergency crews told her that her son had possibly died from using fentanyl.

Brett Ryan, 36, had a long-term drug and alcohol addiction that made his life a struggle.

But a KING 5 Investigation reveals that Ryan, and possibly many others in similar situations, faced additional challenges from the people that were supposed to help them – their lawyer and drug counselors.

After a DUI arrest in 2023, Ryan hired longtime Lakewood DUI attorney Barbara A. Bowden. Her office referred Ryan to Rainier Recovery Center, a substance abuse treatment center with three locations in Pierce County.

It’s common for defense attorneys to send clients to treatment so that when they get their day in court, they can show the judge they’re getting help.

But records from the Washington State Department of Health and interviews with four former Rainier recovery employees show that Bowden had a “deal” with Rainier owner and CEO Jeremiah Dunlap that was harmful to clients.

'Success rates' over real results

Alyssa Keane was Rainier’s director of operations and a state-licensed counselor until May of last year. She recalls Dunlap ordering her to give clients with drug or alcohol problems an “anger management” class, instead of more intensive treatment.

“Anger management is like a one time, eight-hour class. It’s really easy,” Keane said. Keane, and three other former staff members who did not want to be identified, said Dunlap pressed his staff of counselors and counselor trainees to “downgrade” assessments so that treatment would not be as rigorous. Records state he did this at the direction of Barbara Bowden.

Records reveal what may have been the motive for the scheme. 

The state’s final order and agreement says Bowden’s “success rates” getting light sentences and treatment made her “popular” with clients and earned more business. Rainier Recovery received a steady stream of clients from Bowden referrals, more money for Jeremiah Dunlap. In the final order signed by Dunlap with state regulators, he did not dispute that “maximum revenue” was the goal in the scheme.

This is not the first time Barbara Bowden has faced these serious allegations.

In 2016, the KING 5 Investigators revealed that she had ties to five corrupt substance abuse treatment clinics, four of which were shut down by state regulators after KING 5’s Sobriety for Sale stories. Witnesses and state documents said that Bowden had relationships with the clinics and demanded that they manipulate client evaluations. Bowden denied the allegations in a brief 2016 phone interview. “I’m the first to get them evaluated and get them into treatment if they need it,” she said.

With the closure of all of Rainier Recovery’s clinics last November, Bowden is now tied to eight suspicious clinics, seven of which have had licenses suspended or revoked by the state health department.

More recently, Bowden did not respond to numerous messages left at her office. “I have to go to court,” Bowden said, refusing to answer a KING 5 reporter’s questions as she left a hearing at the Pierce County courthouse in March.

Brett Ryan’s case reveals how the “deal” between Bowden and Rainier’s owner may have played out for clients.

Records provided by Ryan’s mother show that his “assessment” was handled by a counselor trainee, whose work is supposed to be supervised by a fully licensed counselor. The assessment is a part of the intake process where a counselor evaluates the patient’s condition and determines a treatment plan.

Ryan’s assessment and treatment plan were signed by Jennifer Richards. She was licensed as a substance use disorder trainee and was new on the job. However, Rainier documents list her as “clinician lead.”

On Ryan’s intake form, she checked a box that designated him “Level 0.5 NSP.” That means “no significant problem” and requires the lowest level of treatment.

When reached by KING 5, Richards said she never saw misconduct at Rainier, although she sometimes felt “overwhelmed.” She did not know that Brett Ryan had died, until the TV station contacted her. “If I made a mistake, oh my God, I feel terrible. Why wouldn’t I,” said Richards.

'I might have' made a mistake

State investigators noted the absence of counseling notes and treatment records in Brett Ryan’s file. They said Richards’s work was not signed off on by a licensed counselor, for which they blamed owner Jeremiah Dunlap.

But Richard’s own records show that Ryan told her that he would “self-medicate” with alcohol and that “I drink because I have switched from heroin to alcohol.”

When questioned, Richards admitted that Ryan does not sound like a client with “no significant problem” and that perhaps she made a mistake. “I might have. I’m a trainee. That’s why they call us trainees,” she said.

When Ryan was sentenced in Pierce County District Court on a reduced charge of negligent driving, Bowden’s law firm submitted Richard’s recommendations to the court. The judge sentenced him to no jail time, and three months of additional monitoring by Rainier Recovery.

It might have been a successful result for the Bowden defense team. But one month after sentencing, Brett Ryan was dead on the floor in his mother’s home with fentanyl in his veins.

Jeremiah Dunlap did not respond to messages from KING 5 seeking comment. The state suspended the license of Rainier Recovery, which forced Dunlap to sell the business. A new owner, Drake Romeo, said Dunlap has no connection to his new business, now renamed Resolve Recovery.

However, there has been no enforcement action against Dunlap’s counseling license, and he is free to practice substance abuse counseling.

The Washington State Bar Association says Barbara A. Bowden has no substantiated complaints in her more than 30 years as a defense lawyer. She continues to practice from her Lakewood office.

“It was about the money, it wasn’t about him,” Judy Russo said of the team that her son depended on. “They didn’t help him at all.”