It was May 2021. Mary Seifert arrived at Starfish Recovery & Wellness with 40 days sober, a decade of active addiction behind her and a willingness to do whatever it took to stay out of jail. 

With drug-possession charges pending in two counties, Henrico County Circuit Court ordered her to live in a Starfish recovery house until her next court date.¹ It was a welcome alternative to sitting at Riverside Regional Jail.

To avoid having her bail revoked, Seifert was prepared to pass regular drug screens, stay in contact with her pretrial officer, and comply with Starfish program requirements. But she wasn’t prepared to spend every day feeling smothered by the male owner and CEO.

According to Seifert and other former female residents, Frank Bellanger made the women’s house his second home. He was a constant presence — policing their bodies, inflicting shame, seeming to thrive on the power he held over them. 

In a May article, I reported on Bellanger’s conduct toward residents and employees broadly, described by many as abusive. This installment focuses on the women at Starfish, highlighting the gender-specific pressures and experiences they report under Bellanger’s control.

‘Sluts,’ ‘whores’ and ‘my girls’: Residents recall Bellanger’s labels and treatment

According to Seifert, Bellanger viewed the women in his program as “whores and prostitutes,” and he governed their daily lives in line with that belief.

Former resident Michelle R. said Bellanger routinely shamed and policed women whose clothing he considered immodest. “You’re going to wear that? That’s too short. You look like a slut. You look like a whore. I’m not letting you leave my house like that,” she recalled him saying.

Another former resident, Valerie Crews, said Bellanger frequently interrogated female residents about their interactions with men. “Where are you going? Why are you messing with these men? Are you talking to men?” she recalled him demanding. She also remembered him saying, “You’re walking around like whores.”

The mother of a former resident said Bellanger made similar remarks to her directly, telling her that her daughter was “basically a slut,” though she couldn’t recall the exact wording.

Crews said that when Bellanger wasn’t physically present at the women’s house, he sometimes monitored the cameras installed at the home’s exterior doors to see what the women were wearing when they left. If he considered their clothing too revealing, she said he would scold the house leader.

Bellanger also used the cameras to monitor the women’s conversations when they went outside to smoke, according to a former resident who will be called Jayla. “He thought he was our fucking daddy or something,” she said. At the same time, she described Bellanger as “a little too friendly” with the women in his housing. “He run a sober living, but he think he’s some type of fucking pimp or something,” she said, noting he referred to the residents as “my girls.”

Another former resident, who will be called Hailey, said Bellanger banned everyone in the women’s house from attending a local Narcotics Anonymous meeting called “Young People in NA,” because he claimed it was a “fuck fest.”

Several former residents described Bellanger’s efforts to block the women from having romantic relationships as part of a broader pattern of control. His behavior wasn’t simply overprotectiveness, they said. It was demeaning. Sometimes territorial. Always unsettling.

Bellanger particularly targeted women who exposed their vulnerabilities, according to former residents.

When Hailey came to Starfish, she openly shared that she had engaged in sex work during active addiction, believing it was safe to talk about her past. But after that disclosure, she said Bellanger placed her on a “sexual contract.” The agreement prohibited her not only from “having sex for money” but also from spending time with any men. “I felt sort of singled out,” she said. “I was just young and in recovery and this [was] fucking weird. If I go to any other house, I’m allowed to be friends with guys.” 

Seifert confirmed that Starfish used a contract similar to the one Hailey described.

According to Melissa Yao, executive director of the National Trafficking Sheltered Alliance, Bellanger’s alleged use of such a contract amounts to a form of victim blaming. She explained that sex work — whether entered into by choice, coercion, or force — is “highly exploitive” and often involves people who are vulnerable due to addiction or economic disadvantages. Women who have been in the sex trade often carry an “overwhelming sense of shame,” she said. “What a tragedy that he used [Hailey’s vulnerability] to shame her into complying with him.” 

Now more than two years sober and back in school, Hailey said she has come to recognize how unethical Bellanger’s behavior was:

He claims he has all this education, but it’s like, dude, if you even took the most basic of classes in peer support, [you would know], ethically, everything that you’ve done is weird. …

He said the women’s house was so important to him, but I feel like [it was for] all the wrong reasons.

As a woman in recovery, Hailey’s history is not unique.

Drawing on more than a decade of experience, Yao estimates that at least half of women with addiction enter the sex trade at some point.  Whether by choice or not, she said, “the trauma is there.”

Desiree Trail, a member of the Virginia Coalition Against Human Trafficking who survived 18 years of drug addiction and sex trafficking, expressed a similar view:

If someone is engaging in prostitution, I can guarantee you 90 plus percent of the time they are being trafficked or at least have experienced severe sexual violence at some point in their lives that has led them to [prostitution]. Because I can tell you one thing…it was never a job, and it was never enjoyable. So, that’s trauma at its worst.

Despite promoting Starfish as a trauma-informed organization, Bellanger’s approach to women he suspected of being “prostitutes” was devoid of compassion, former residents said. To them, it was all about control.

Early in Seifert’s residency, she became one of Bellanger’s targets.

On July 2, 2021, less than six weeks into her stay, Seifert was spending a pre-approved night away from Starfish with her family — a privilege residents could earn after 30 days in the program . She was in bed around 11:30 p.m. when the ding of a voicemail notification woke her up. Half-asleep, she played a two-minute message from Bellanger accusing her of being out of compliance.

In the recording, Bellanger told Seifert that her bed fee was overdue and that she had violated the overnight communication policy. He went on to imply she was engaging in prostitution — stating that he believed she was “not actually going out on overnights” but engaging in “unhealthy behaviors that aren’t conducive to the recovery environment.” He added, “That’s been our suspicion the entire time regarding your relationship…”

The “relationship” Bellanger referenced was Seifert’s then-fiancé — a man she had been dating for more than six years, who later ended up working for Starfish. But at the time, Bellanger believed the man was her pimp.

Rather than approach Seifert as someone who might have been experiencing trauma, Bellanger reportedly shamed and berated her, even enlisting her housemates to inform on her.

One night shortly after Seifert learned she’d been labeled a suspected “prostitute,” she said Bellanger showed up at the women’s house by himself around midnight. He made the house leader pull everyone out of bed, and then he started screaming that he knew there was a “prostitute” in the house. 

“I remember being on the couch [thinking], ‘Are you kidding me? Yeah, OK. Yes, I’m the prostitute,’” Seifert recounted, her voice edged with sarcasm.

Valerie Crews remembers that night “vividly.” She corroborated Seifert’s account, calling Bellanger’s outburst “verbal abuse.” According to Crews, Bellanger was also screaming that he was under scrutiny from the Virginia Association of Recovery Residences (VARR) and accused the women of trying to “sabotage [his] livelihood.” The accusation didn’t make much sense, but one thing was clear to her: Bellanger’s concern wasn’t for a resident who might have needed help. His issue was, “You’re fucking my shit up,” she said. “That’s all he cared about.”

When I described Seifert’s and Crews’ accounts to Melissa Yao, she shook her head and said, “No. Nope. No.”

Then she explained:

Number one…the majority of those women have experienced early childhood trauma, and it often happened at night. They’re already having trouble sleeping, and now you’re disrupting that. How terrifying for them. So that right there is an indicator of an element of control and manipulation that is toxic and unhealthy. And I’m very comfortable saying that on the record. Because anybody that understands addiction…understands that sleeping patterns are absolutely vital to helping them recover. Whether [they’re] recovering from sexual abuse or addiction…any psychologist will tell you that. And so, deregulating those sleeping habits puts [him] in a position of power and authority and keeps them on their toes.

Later, Yao added:

I just get so frustrated at the helplessness that so many of these people feel, whether it’s an employee at these toxic work environments or it’s program participants…they’ve already got this trauma from what led to this moment. And now the one program that was supposed to help them compounds it.

Desiree Trail echoed that concern, noting that berating a resident for suspected prostitution would “absolutely” re-traumatize someone who had lived through the trade.

One day shortly after Frank Bellanger’s late night screaming episode, Crews said the residents were individually interrogated by him and Stephanie Bellanger — Frank’s wife, co-owner and chief wellness officer of Starfish. When the Bellangers summoned Crews to the back porch, she realized the questioning was part of their ongoing effort to catch the house “prostitute.” After she said she didn’t know who it was, Stephanie told her it was Seifert. 

“I spent a lot of time with Mary,” Crews told me. “And I knew it wasn’t Mary.” She tried to convince the Bellangers they had the wrong person, but “they [acted] almost like I was just lying to take up for her.” 

Experts say that putting residents in a position to “snitch” on one another can be deeply harmful. Brittany Dunn, chief operating officer and co-founder of Safe House Project, explained that for any organization, such practices are not conducive to recovery. “It doesn’t allow for trust to be built within the home,” she said. “It’s not going to aid in anyone’s healing journey because residents are going to question if they can trust the program.”

Seifert recalled being drilled by the Bellangers that same day:

They pulled me out on the porch, and they said that they [had] seen one of our girls having sex at the park. Like, they were trying to get me to admit [to] something that I wasn’t doing. … I said, “I have a house in South Side. If I want to have sex, I’m going to have sex there.” … And you should have seen them looking at each other.

The Bellangers left Seifert alone after that. Crews said she felt relieved, because usually, “when they get a target in their mind…they set out to destroy people.”

Frank Bellanger allegedly pursues romantic relationship with Starfish resident

While Frank continued shaming and policing the women in his sober home, he allegedly entered a sexual relationship with one of them — a resident who, court records show, had been ordered into recovery housing, arrived at Starfish with roughly three weeks drug-free, and was placed in a house leader position after her first month. She will be called Ava.

Over the course of several months, Seifert watched the relationship between Frank and Ava unfold:

[Ava] would disappear in the middle of the night after curfew. We would go places as a group and [Frank] would just start screaming on her because she acted real flirty with other men…like, you know, jealousy. … She was always wearing that expensive hair she couldn’t afford, and he was paying for it. She told me anything she basically wanted, he paid for. …

I felt like it was wrong…but if I [said] something they might [have sent] me back to jail or something like that, so I kept my mouth shut.

Ava didn’t respond when I reached out to her, but Seifert wasn’t alone in her assessment.

The four other female residents I spoke with who lived at Starfish while Ava was there — Valerie Crews, Erin, Jayla and Hailey (the latter three pseudonyms) — shared similar observations.

Jayla’s friendship with Ava pre-dated their time at Starfish. She said she knew for certain that Frank had an intimate relationship with Ava, and she felt targeted for knowing about it:

[Frank] had to get me out of the way because I knew too much, I seen too much. … He was trying to send me back to jail…because I knew what was going on. … He rubbed it in my face, “I’m the reason you’re home. … I could [put] you back in jail.”

“I can’t even explain how devastating that relationship [between Frank and Ava] was,” Hailey said. “Just trying to be in recovery and then seeing what recovery looks like from here.” 

She added: “I don’t even know if you can call it an affair when he had all the power, you know?”

Other residents expressed similar views about the imbalance. As Erin put it: “I feel like [Ava] was definitely in a vulnerable position for Frank to take advantage of her.” 

After hearing these accounts, Melissa Yao said there was “no way” the relationship could be mutually beneficial. “The power dynamic is too disjointed,” she said.

A former male employee, who requested anonymity, said Frank directly admitted the relationship to him and that Frank referred to Ava as an “ass to mouth whore.”  

Former residents also believed Stephanie found out about the relationship before Ava left Starfish. As a result, they said Stephanie targeted Ava and anyone who spoke about it.

One day in early 2021, Crews said Stephanie called her and started asking questions about Ava as if she wanted “some dirt” on her. Stephanie made it clear that she didn’t trust Ava and suggested that Crews would make a better house leader. 

“It was like Stephanie was dangling me being a house leader as a reward,” she said. “And that made me feel weird.” 

After that call, Crews went on a walk with her roommate to debrief. Not realizing she had accidentally “butt dialed” Stephanie, Crews and her roommate speculated that Stephanie had learned about her husband’s relationship with Ava. 

When Crews returned to the house, she said Frank and Stephanie showed up and started screaming at her. She described Stephanie’s behavior as “very aggressive,” “in my face,” and “verging on violence.” 

“She came at me in such a manner that I felt almost an instinct to protect myself,” Crews said. It was a side of Stephanie she had never seen before. Frank’s screaming was something she had grown accustomed to.

When the Bellangers told Crews they were going to kick her out, she quickly bluffed and said she was recording them. “Then all of a sudden, [Frank] wanted to calm things down,” she said. “That whole experience was insane.” 

The alleged incident occurred before Seifert arrived at Starfish, but she said Crews told her about it when she got there in mid-2021. Hailey also remembered the event. She wasn’t there that day, but she said Crews’ roommate relayed the whole story over the phone on the day it happened. 

Around that time, Stephanie’s demeanor toward Ava “completely changed,” Hailey said. “It almost seemed like she made [Ava] an enemy.”

Starfish court report tells a different story

Ava had lived at Starfish for nearly a year when Frank portrayed her as a recovery success story in a letter to Henrico County Circuit Court:

Following that report, the court ordered Ava to continue “treatment” with Starfish until her sentencing hearing that October.²

When sentencing approached, Frank wrote another letter to the court urging that Ava remain out of jail. The judge took that report under special consideration, writing that the court was “impressed” by Ava’s progress and by her role as a “leader and role model” at Starfish:

It’s unclear how the court might have ruled had Frank not vouched for Ava’s progress. But her case file illustrates how his assessments can directly influence judicial decisions about Starfish residents’ freedom. Several former residents said Frank wielded that influence to maintain control — using the constant threat of jail as leverage.

Despite the daily challenges of living under Frank’s control, Seifert kept her head down and stayed focused on meeting Starfish program requirements. Eventually, she said Frank began to show her a degree of respect — as if it were a reward she’d earned through perseverance and hard work.

The turning point, she recalled, came when she started “whooping his ass” at CrossFit, a required component of the Starfish program. As she excelled in the gym and her dynamic with Frank improved, she even found herself beginning to enjoy her time there.

When Ava moved out of Starfish in early November 2021, Seifert took the role of house leader at Frank’s request. Within a month, she was taking on additional responsibilities, and a few months later, she was officially promoted to residential recovery manager — a position later retitled program director.

When she transitioned into leadership, Seifert quickly became Frank’s right hand and confidant. Not long after, she said Frank admitted to what she and her housemates already knew — that he had a sexual relationship with Ava. He also told her he was paying Ava to keep quiet about it.

By the time of that admission, the situation had become so normalized to her that she was unfazed. But other aspects of leadership weighed heavily on her.

She said the Bellangers continued to publicly shame and berate residents they suspected of engaging in prostitution — sometimes worse than they had treated her back when she was on the suspect list.

At the same time, according to Seifert and former participants, Frank continued to express his own sexual interest in Starfish residents. That’s what irked Seifert the most. “What was really, really bothering me was him speaking of my girls, because I loved them,” she said during an interview in March. “And I still love them.” 

Two former male residents separately described Frank with the same word: “creep.” One said Frank’s comments about women weren’t like “the kind every guy does” — they were “extra creepy.” Another former resident who left Starfish within the last few months said she watched Frank “flirt with pretty much every last female in the room.”

The contradiction was striking. Frank shamed residents for suspected prostitution, yet his own alleged behavior crossed boundaries with women in the program.

A similar tension appeared in Starfish text messages I reviewed — Frank used the word “whore” to describe female residents, then hinted at his personal endorsement of prostitution, stating, “head never hurt anyone.”

‘Protect Frank’

According to Seifert, her “number one job priority” under Stephanie’s direction was to “protect Frank” from being left alone with female residents. “[Stephanie initially explained that] a lot of stuff has been said about Frank, so she said not to leave him alone with these females so they could make up these allegations,” Seifert recalled. But later, Stephanie allegedly acknowledged these weren’t just “allegations” when she admitted knowing about her husband’s “inappropriate” relationship with Ava.

Seifert said she and Stephanie developed an unspoken understanding: protect Frank from his own lack of self-control around women.

Seifert also felt that some female residents were unfairly punished in the interest of that mission. Stephanie never stated this directly, but Seifert believes she pushed certain women out due to fear that her husband was attracted to them. “Frank liked Black women,” Seifert said, and “Stephanie wanted to get rid of any Black girl that came through there.”³

One case in particular stood out to her.

“I had to get rid of one [Black] girl that I really didn’t want to get rid of because [I think Stephanie was] worried that Frank was going to mess with the girl,” Seifert said. 

Text messages show that Stephanie wanted to discharge that resident, who will be called Mila, by her third day at Starfish:

About a month into Mila’s stay, text messages show Stephanie learned that Mila had been “severely sexually abused” for eight years. 

Two weeks later, Stephanie alleged that Mila had been “acting out” sexually. But instead of recognizing that behavior as a trauma response, Stephanie treated it as a disciplinary problem. In a text to Seifert and the house leader, Stephanie wrote:

Regarding [Mila.] Frank wants her put on notice that if there are any more issues about sexual acting out she will be discharged.

But according to Seifert, Frank had privately expressed his attraction to Mila. “Frank would always act like, ‘Don’t leave me alone with that girl,’” she said. “He would always tell me that.” 

Regardless, by framing the warning as coming from her husband — a male CEO — about a female resident’s “sexual acting out,” Stephanie illustrated how blurred the boundaries had become at Starfish and revealed her own participation in that dynamic. 

A few days after Stephanie’s warning, Mila was discharged from Starfish. The official reason, Seifert said, was that she had missed too many IOP sessions with River City.

Frank’s alleged sexual misconduct turns toward Seifert 

In the summer of 2022, Seifert said Frank began crossing boundaries with her.

One day at CrossFit, they were running to the corner of the block and back as part of that day’s workout routine. When she and Frank passed each other, Seifert said his hand accidentally brushed against her rear end. He said “excuse me,” she recalled — then added, “I’ve been wanting to do that.” 

Not long after, there was a similar encounter. “He went past me and I’m running past him, and he smacks me on my butt again,” Seifert said. “And that one was intentional.” 

Later that summer, while sitting in a car with Frank, Seifert said he put his hand on her thigh and remarked that he “fucked good from the back.”

As summer turned to fall, she said he began speaking to her in explicit detail about his sexual fantasies, seemingly trying to gauge her reaction. “I didn’t like riding in the car with him anymore because it was always something vulgar coming out of his mouth,” she said.

Frank never put the type of comments she described in writing. But in one group chat with Seifert and Stephanie, he admitted holding back an “inappropriate” remark about a flattering photo of Seifert from a staff photo shoot:

For months, Seifert ignored Frank’s behavior. But after she was released from court supervision in late September 2022, she began to push back. “I told Frank [his behavior] was inappropriate and it made me feel uncomfortable,” she said. Seifert also recalled confronting him about the disrespect he showed toward his wife, whom she had considered a close friend.

At the time, Seifert didn’t tell her then-fiancé, who also worked for Starfish, about Frank’s advances, though she said he was well aware of Frank’s vulgar comments about women.

One day in mid-to-late October, Seifert said her then-fiancé confronted Frank about the sexually explicit language he used around her. And Frank “had a real issue with that,” she said. “Frank came to me and was like, ‘You’re my right hand! I should be able to speak to you any way I want and share with you anything I want!’” 

At that point, Seifert said she spoke up more forcefully than she had in the past, making it clear she was fed up.

From there, things went downhill quickly. Within days, according to Seifert:

Frank came at me with this list of [job duties] highlighted, saying I wasn’t doing it. And I looked at it and I said, “Are you fucking kidding me?” … I said, ‘You were working me like a fucking dog. … I said, “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but I’m not playing this game with you.” I said, “I’ve done nothing but break my back for y’all and you’re going to treat me like this?!”

Later that day, Oct. 27, 2022, Stephanie emailed Seifert a list of alleged performance issues and informed her that she would be placed on a two-week suspension, followed by a 45-day performance-improvement plan. “I don’t know what [Frank] said to Stephanie to turn her against me,” Seifert said. Stephanie’s change in demeanor was “just like a flipped switch. It just flipped off, like I was nothing to her.”

According to Seifert, the Bellangers’ decision to abruptly suspend her came after no prior write-ups alleging performance problems. She said most of the listed issues were either blown out of proportion or had never been considered problems until now. She believed the Bellangers were grasping for any justification to suspend her.

(Emails related to Seifert’s suspension, along with her responses to the allegations, are available here.)

Whether the alleged performance issues were valid, fabricated or somewhere in between, there was no explanation for what happened next.

Five days before Seifert was scheduled to return from suspension, Frank told her to contact Stephanie on November 10 for instructions. But three days later, the Bellangers called Seifert into the office and fired her.

Seifert explained:

They kept asking me if I was using, you know, trying to make it sound like [I was]. And I was like, “No.” … They could have drug tested me. Did they? No. Because they knew it was going to be clean. …

And they kept saying they were appalled by what I did while I was on my suspension. And I was like, “What did I do?” [They] never gave me an answer. … Then they just got up and walked off. … I never got a true reason why they let me go.⁴

Almost as soon as Seifert left the premises, Stephanie ordered Starfish staff and house leaders to cut off all contact with her:

The person who leaked Stephanie’s message to Seifert followed up with a text: 

I’m deleting our text[s] and calls in case they try to go through my phone[.] I can just feel the bullshit coming.

The sudden ousting hit Seifert hard. Before that day, her whole life and identity had been wrapped up in Starfish.

“They hurt me, man, and it really could have sent me in a downward spiral,” she said. “It did as far as me being depressed and stuff. It fucked me up because that was my family. I mean, that was my organization. That was my community. … They just exiled me from my community.”

Valerie Crews recalled many times residents were banned from communicating with someone who left Starfish on bad terms with Frank or Stephanie. “I always felt bad for girls [who were kicked out], especially ones that left under duress,” she said. “I couldn’t reach out or check on them at least.”

Seifert said she at least has a strong support system with her family, “but there’s people [at Starfish] that have nobody,” she said. “I don’t want [this] to happen to anybody else.”

Frank faces VARR complaint and sexual battery charge

After the initial shock of her ousting dissipated, Seifert decided to take action.

On Nov. 26, 2022, she filed a criminal complaint detailing Frank’s advances and comments toward her, as well as his alleged relationship with a Starfish resident (Ava). The Richmond Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office subsequently pursued a charge for misdemeanor sexual battery — what appeared to be the only prosecutable offense in the complaint.

Seifert and her then-fiancé also met with Bob DeTriquet and Matthew Conner at the VARR office, where she recounted her experiences with the Bellangers. Her then-fiancé corroborated the aspects of her report he had directly witnessed, she said, including Frank’s admission to an intimate relationship with a resident and his sexual comments about other residents.

She followed up that meeting with a written complaint:

On January 11, Frank’s sexual battery charge was heard in Richmond General District Court, and he was found not guilty.

The prosecuting attorney, Kelyn Gibson, did not respond to my inquiry about the case outcome, despite having Seifert’s written consent to discuss it with me. I also reached out to Richmond Commonwealth’s Attorney Collette McEachin, who explained: “There is no transcript of GDC (General District Court) trials so we have no way of knowing the specific basis for the court’s decision, other than that the court found that the Commonwealth’s evidence did not prove the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.”

With no witnesses to the alleged sexual battery, Seifert said the Commonwealth’s case rested entirely on her testimony. Given that, it is perhaps unsurprising that a “he said, she said” case did not meet the high burden of proof required for a criminal conviction.

According to Seifert, DeTriquet and Conner told her that VARR would not “get involved” in her complaint because of the court case. Yet most of what she reported to VARR — boundary violations, sexual harassment, and retaliation — were not criminal issues at all. And even the alleged sexual battery could still have warranted an ethical review by VARR, which requires a much lower threshold for intervention than the high burden of proof needed for a criminal conviction. Given VARR’s role as an oversight body, its alleged decision to take no action in response to those accounts reinforces ongoing questions about how seriously the organization enforces its own standards.

Seifert said that after VARR confirmed receipt of her written complaint, she never heard from the organization again.

Two then-VARR board members, including one who served on the Standards and Ethics Committee, told me they were never informed of Seifert’s complaint.

In response to my request for comment, VARR wrote:

It is important to note that the details referenced in your email contain information that is misleading and/or mischaracterizing in regards to the subject matter. 

Potential NARR Standards & Code of Ethics violations brought to the VARR Office, and any subsequent action, are processed by the VARR Office, the VARR Board of Directors, related committees, and input from subject matter experts.

Issues involving Standards & Code of Ethics violations are handled internally and not commented on publicly.

The month after Seifert met with Conner and DeTriquet, Stephanie was elected onto the VARR board.

Just two years earlier, VARR board members were debating whether to recertify Starfish after a string of complaints prompted Frank to relinquish his VARR membership and file a complaint against VARR with the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services (DBHDS) — the state agency that funds VARR and formally lists VARR-accredited houses as state-certified recovery homes.

According to November 2020 VARR board meeting minutes, the Standards and Ethics Committee recommended additional oversight for Starfish after receiving “an unusual number of complaints.” In an email to DBHDS, then-VARR President David Rook noted those complaints came “from both clients and professional organizations in the area, [i]ncluding [an] addiction medicine OBOT (Office-Based Opioid Treatment) facility and [a] state probation office.”

During that same meeting, John Shinholser, then-president of The McShin Foundation, read a text message he had received from a former female resident of Starfish:

[Frank] was checking out [Resident’s] butt (completely inappropriatly [sic] than anything I’ve seen) … He also would come a lot when we were in bed and would come in our rooms often. I found that odd.

According to the minutes, then-vice president (and current president) Sarah Scarbrough “reminded all that VARR fired someone for unethical behavior.” She stated, “The owner of Starfish has unethical behavior, why are we recertifying him?”

(View the VARR board meeting minutes, Frank’s complaint, and related emails here.)

Nonetheless, within two months, Starfish reappeared on the state list of certified recovery residences. And as I reported in January, Starfish began receiving access to exclusive pots of VARR funding by July 2021 — just after Seifert arrived at Starfish. By mid-2022, the organization had opened a second women’s home.

In a May 2022 VARR board meeting, Scarbrough reflected on what VARR certification represents:

[O]ne area, being the new chair, that I really want to focus on is making VARR a household name. It’s so familiar to all of us. We all love VARR, what VARR does. It’s very respected within the recovery community. It amazes me as I’m talking with folks in everyday work how many people, whether it be commonwealth attorneys or people of that nature, that don’t know about VARR. I think it’s critically important. I was talking with a group of police officers the other day after doing some training with them. They referenced how most recovery houses were shady operations. I said, “No, no, no. Let’s talk.” I explained to them what a VARR certified house is compared to something else. I said, “Plain and simple, if you go into a house for any type of call, look on the wall and see if there’s VARR paperwork posted, certification is there. If it is, two thumbs up. Things are above board. If that VARR certification is not there, it should raise some major red flags.

But as Frank pointed out in a follow-up complaint to DBHDS: 

VARR has become a quasi-government agency (other government agencies rely on its certification). Again, this is deeply concerning to me because VARR itself has no oversight.

Along with my request for comment on this article, I asked Grimes and Scarbrough how VARR responded to my previous reporting that highlighted unethical conduct toward Starfish residents.

Among other questions, I asked:

• Has VARR intervened with Starfish in any way?

• Has VARR made any changes as an organization (i.e. – implemented new policies/procedures) in response to the information I presented on Starfish?

• Regarding the Starfish non-disclosure agreement that effectively banned anyone in leadership (including resident house leaders) from ever reporting abusive conduct by Frank or Stephanie Bellanger:
  • Was VARR previously aware of that NDA?
  • Does VARR consider that NDA consistent with VARR’s code of ethics?

• For any VARR-certified operators, what is VARR’s position on the practice of “exiling” residents (i.e. – forbidding current residents from having any contact with someone who was discharged, regardless of the reason for their dismissal)?

Grimes and Scarbrough did not respond.

As a VARR-certified organization, Starfish can get away with violating the same human rights that state-licensed treatment facilities cannot — policing residents’ relationships without clinical justification or approval, forcing them to see specific treatment providers such as River City Comprehensive Counseling Services, or removing them from housing at will. Unlike at state-licensed facilities, sober home residents have no access to a human rights advocate or an independent board to hear their concerns.

Recovery residence operators hold a unique kind of power. And according to more than 100 residents of Richmond-area recovery homes, many operators are abusing that power — for profit, and, as some residents put it, for the high of power itself — because no one is telling them they can’t.

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As previously reported, the Bellangers requested in May that I cease all contact with them.  If they choose to respond to any information in this section, I will promptly add their comments and post a notification of the update.

If you have information about sexual harassment or misconduct in recovery housing, I encourage you to reach out. Your name and any identifying details will not be shared without your permission.

This article was edited for clarity and readability. No substantive changes were made.

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More on Frank Bellanger and Starfish Recovery & Wellness:

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1. When the Henrico County Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office deems a defendant suitable for release to a recovery residence, it typically agrees to that defendant’s transfer to a home on its list of approved recovery residences. To appear on that list, a house must be VARR-certified, pass a county safety inspection, and agree to comply with a few basic conditions. Defendants locate a home on the list that will accept them, which is then presented to the court for approval. More on Henrico County’s process — and its efforts to connect people with drug charges to safe, stable housing — will be covered in a future installment. [Return to article]

2. Starfish is not a licensed treatment facility. Peer-run recovery homes are often mistaken for treatment centers by both professionals and the public, in part due to misleading advertising. [Return to article]

3. A May 2022 VARR presentation confirmed that Starfish had low retention of minority residents, which earned the Bellangers a $105,000 commitment from VARR to help improve those outcomes. [Return to article]

4. According to Seifert, her termination meeting was recorded and would corroborate her account. She said she was unable to retrieve a copy from her ex-fiancé’s old phone but believes the Bellangers still have a recording. [Return to article]