| “ | What's underneath every decision to pick up the martini shaker, chop out a line, tie off an arm, is selfishness. Addicts are selfish, and though I don't hate my patients, I do hate their selfishness, and if they don't like that they can go off to their alley and die. | ” |
— Smith to JJ and Alvez.
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Dr. Robert Smith was a sociopathic businessman, con artist and unclassified killer who runs and owns 12 rehab centers, including Sweetwater Springs Rehab. He appears in the Season Fourteen episode "Broken Wing".
Background[]
Robert Smith is an ex-con, having served time for drugs, assault, and manslaughter. He beat a man to death for calling him a failure and slumlord. Smith received a doctorate in business from a non-accredited online school, presumably either while he was in prison or once he got out. It was after he received his doctorate that he opened his rehabilitation clinics.
Broken Wing[]
When Luke and JJ go to Sweetwater Springs to investigate the most recent in the line of overdoses, they run into Robet Smith who openly shows a hatred for his patients and their weaknesses. Due to this, JJ and Luke get Garcia to do a background check on Smith, revealing that he has a criminal past, and that most of the victims attended his rehab clinics. When they revisit Sweetwater, Robert is seen searching for one of the victims' journals before intimidating Molly, another patient, for her perceived leak of information to the FBI. He is interrupted when Luke and Matt arrive to ask him to come to the police station for questioning. While he initially agrees to go with them voluntarily, he attempts to run and is arrested before being taken in for questioning.
Once at the police station, it is discovered that Robert is not the killer, but rather, that he kicks his patients out so they'll relapse and come back over and over, essentially making him out to be a con-artist, but not liable for the murders. He was looking for the journal because he was worried that the patients were writing about his scam operation and that it would get out to the public. The team deduces that it is likely someone else on Robert's staff that is committing these murders, and they try to inquire about Robert's payroll documents, but he becomes once again cocky and uncooperative and his lawyer backs up his unwillingness to help before they leave.
Robert returns to his rehab clinic and, angry about Molly bringing the FBI's attention to the rehab clinic and his scam operation, he kicks her out of the program during a group therapy session. He isn't seen again after this, and though his actions were what prompted Douglas Knight, a nurse on his staff, to kidnap Molly and nearly kill her, he sees no legal repercussions for his shady actions.
Modus Operandi[]
Smith’s crimes are mostly unknown except that he once beat a man to death for an extremely petty reason. As a con artist, he emotionally berated and insulted his patients to con them into relapsing, all so he could force them back into the shelter to be conned.