American Greed: Scams, Scoundrels and Scandals Season 3 Episode 5 Skin Doctor Takes His Cut/Revolutionary Guru of Greed

American Greed: Scams, Scoundrels and Scandals season 3 episode 5 features two intriguing stories of fraud and deception.

The first story focuses on a dermatologist named Dr. David Kent, who built up a successful practice in Southern California. But as investigators later discovered, Kent was doing much more than just treating patients' skin ailments. In fact, he was running a multi-million dollar fraud scheme that involved false billing, kickbacks, and even performing unnecessary surgeries on patients.

Kent's scheme started small, with him padding bills to insurance companies for minor procedures. But over time, he became bolder and more brazen, performing surgeries that were not medically necessary and then billing insurers for them. He also received kickbacks from pharmaceutical companies for prescribing their drugs to patients.

To cover up his fraud, Kent falsified medical records and instructed his staff to do the same. He was eventually caught by investigators and indicted on multiple counts of healthcare fraud, conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud, and making false statements to Medicare.

The second story in this episode features James Arthur Ray, a self-proclaimed motivational speaker and entrepreneur. Ray rose to fame in the early 2000s for his transformational seminars and workshops that promised to help people achieve prosperity and success in their personal and professional lives.

But as investigators later discovered, Ray's motivational empire was built on fraud and manipulation. He encouraged attendees to take on massive amounts of debt to attend his seminars, promising that they would make back their investment many times over through the success they would achieve after attending his workshops.

However, attendees soon realized that the promised success was nowhere to be found. Some were left with massive debts and ruined credit scores, while others were subjected to extreme physical and emotional abuse during Ray's seminars.

Ray's fraudulent schemes eventually caught up with him in 2009, when three people died in one of his "sweat lodge" events. He was later charged with three counts of negligent homicide and served two years in prison.

American Greed: Scams, Scoundrels and Scandals season 3 episode 5 highlights the lengths that some people will go to in order to deceive and defraud others for their own personal gain. These stories serve as a cautionary tale to always be vigilant and aware of potential scams and fraudsters.