Jessica Mathews / news@whmi.com


A woman accused of posing as a board-certified therapist at a local recovery center is facing more than a dozen felony charges.

34-year-old Kimberly Casey Coden-Diskin was arraigned in 53rd District Court in Howell on 16 counts of unauthorized practice of a health profession and two counts of identity theft.

The Department of Attorney General alleges that Coden-Diskin obtained employment in 2018 at the Oxford Recovery Center in Brighton. It says during her employment at the facility, Coden-Diskin repeatedly represented herself as a Board-Certified Behavioral Analyst - despite her lack of required certification by the Behavior Analyst Certification Board (BACB).

Coden-Diskin was also never licensed by the State of Michigan as required under the Michigan Public Health Code.

The Department says Coden-Diskin continuously presented herself as a certified and licensed BCBA through professional business cards, verbal statements, and written documents. It’s alleged she engaged in job duties that required such a certification and license while working with a highly vulnerable population of children diagnosed with Autism, as well as the parents of the child patients.

In addition, Coden-Diskin allegedly utilized the BACB certification number of another state-certified individual to fraudulently manufacture a BACB certificate under her own identity to continue to present herself as a legitimate BCBA.

The Attorney General’s Health Care Fraud Division handled the case for the Department.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel commented “People who impersonate credentialed medical staff in order to treat children create the potential for great harm. I will not tolerate those who put children at risk and will prosecute those that do to the fullest extent of the law”.

CEO Tami Peterson told WHMI they had not seen the complaint against Diskin and therefore, did not have a response to the charges against her at this time. She stressed that Oxford Recovery Center provides exceptional care to its patients – adding they believe children deserve the best and they will continue to provide that for them.

Coden-Diskin is scheduled to appear for a probable cause conference on August 23rd.