Temple University will terminate a $55 million gift — the largest donation in the school’s history — from alumnus Christopher M. Barnett, whose company is under federal criminal investigation over allegations of money laundering, wire fraud, and other crimes.
Barnett, a behavioral healthcare business leader whose company, ABA Centers of America, provides services to children with autism, has resigned from Temple’s board of trustees, Temple president John Fry said Tuesday.
The gift, largely intended for Temple’s College of Public Health, was announced with much fanfare last October, but none of the payments had yet been made to Temple under the gift agreement schedule, Fry said.
The decision to terminate the gift was mutual, Fry said, and came as Barnett is “recovering from a life-threatening medical event.” Particularly difficult was that the federal allegations concern healthcare fraud and the gift was intended for the public health college, the president said.
“We have to think about our values,” Fry said in an interview Tuesday. “We have to think about our reputation. Given the nature of the allegations, we felt that the best thing to do was to separate ourselves from this … as painful as that is.”
Fry said that he became aware of the allegations Thursday from recently unsealed court documents in the case and that Temple reached out to Barnett, who resigned from the board Saturday. Temple decided to announce its intention to terminate the gift after the board of trustees got a briefing on Monday, Fry said.
The College of Public Health will no longer bear Barnett’s name, nor will the dean’s title in the College of Liberal Arts or an “essential needs hub” that Temple recently opened on campus to help improve student success, Fry said.
Barnett has not been charged. He “strenuously denies” the allegations and intends to “vigorously defend” against them, Fry and Mitchell L. Morgan, chair of the board of trustees, said in a message to the campus community, but the university “believes the actions outlined here are necessary.”
“After careful deliberation we believe that moving forward with the gift would not be in the best interest of Temple,” Fry and Morgan said.
Barnett’s company did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
What federal investigators are looking at
Federal investigators in December obtained a search warrant for Barnett’s Microsoft accounts, as well as those of other company executives, court records show. The warrant application, unsealed in July in federal court in New Hampshire, says evidence suggests ABA Centers of America billed insurance companies for unnecessary treatments and falsified records to justify the higher reimbursement.
The federal investigation and documents were reported last week by Behavioral Health Business, an industry publication.
The warrant was the second a federal judge in New Hampshire approved last year as part of the investigation by the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General.
Investigators allege that Barnett executed the scheme through a web of interlinked companies he founded, including ABA Centers of America, ICBD Holdings, and Exact Billing Solutions. His archived biography on ICBD Holdings’ website, which was removed in recent days, said Barnett is “actively involved” in the companies and served as the chairman of ABA Centers of America.
The company misrepresented the location in which services took place to get the higher reimbursement costs, investigators said, and “billed for services that did not qualify as legitimate medical treatment, such as when a client is napping or watching television,” according to the affidavit accompanying the warrant request.
ABA Centers of America was a “giant billing mill,” one former employee told federal investigators, according to court records. ABA has affiliated companies providing services in Pennsylvania, including in the Philadelphia area, and New Jersey.
Barnett, who has no medical training, personally set minimum hours of treatment for patients and gave bonuses to employees who billed according to those goals, emails obtained by investigators show.
The fraudulently obtained payments funded Barnett’s “lavish lifestyle,” which included a fleet of rare cars, a lease for a $20 million waterfront home in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and a $9.95 million private jet decked out with Hermès goods, according to court records.
The autism-services provider also faces multiple civil lawsuits, including a suit over allegations of inflated billing practices in Florida. A federal judge overseeing that case said last month that if evidence produced in the litigation corroborates the allegations, “ABA Centers have engaged in criminal conduct.”
Historic contribution and its impact on Temple
Barnett’s historic contribution to Temple was announced last October, less than a year after Fry became president of the university. Barnett met with Fry before Fry took the helm at Temple in November 2024, the president said, and Barnett joined the Temple board in May 2025.
About $20 million of Barnett’s gift was targeted for an autism center at the public health college. Fry said Tuesday that initiative now would have to be “rethought.” The essential needs hub will continue, and Fry said he will seek another donor to support it.
Barnett had made other, smaller gifts previously, Fry said, and Temple will be reviewing those. He did not elaborate.
When announcing the gift, Barnett told The Inquirer how he initially had been rejected by Temple but bought a plane ticket and showed up unannounced at the office of the director of transfer admissions, waiting hours until she finally agreed to see him.
“I said I need you to take a chance on me, and if you do that, I promise you I will graduate with a 4.0 and I’ll be a prominent alum and I’ll give back to the university,” Barnett said in an interview last October.
Barnett’s gift surpassed the $27.5 million given by philanthropists Sidney and Caroline Kimmel earlier that year. That gift now stands again as Temple’s official record.
“I believe in Temple University,” Barnett, who has homes in Fort Lauderdale and Philadelphia, said in October. “Temple took a chance on me when the odds were uncertain. And it helped shape who I am and what I’ve been able to do for my communities.”
Temple officials on Tuesday indicated Barnett was continuing to think about Temple.
“Mr. Barnett has expressed a desire to avoid any negative impact on Temple and, in keeping with such desire, has cooperated with the university through this difficult process,” Fry and Morgan said.
Fry acknowledged the loss of the gift would be disappointing to students, faculty, staff, and alumni at the public health college. And it is a gut punch to the university at a time when the school has been making cuts to close a budget deficit and dealing with enrollment declines.
“This is clearly a setback,” Fry said.
But he noted that even without Barnett’s gift, the university experienced the biggest fundraising year in its history in fiscal 2026, taking in $159 million.
“This action does not diminish the philanthropic momentum and strength of Temple,” Fry and Morgan wrote in the campus message.
The university will look at its practices for accepting gifts, Fry said.
“We will go back and we’ll scrutinize ourselves over this, and, if there are practices we need to tighten up, we’ll tighten up those practices,” he said.
