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PREVIOUSLY: After Closing Its Doors Late Last Year, Singing Trees Recovery Center Will Reopen Next Week Under New Ownership

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Bedell | Booking photo courtesy HCSO

Less than a month after reopening Singing Trees Recovery Center, new owner Amber Rose Bedell, age 45, was arrested on the Fourth of July and booked into the Humboldt County jail on charges of driving under the influence of alcohol and child endangerment.

This was Bedell’s third DUI arrest since 2016 and her second for child endangerment, according to state and county records.

Bedell is the founder of Pure Solution Family Services, Inc., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded last year. It’s through that organization that Bedell is operating Singing Trees Recovery Center, a drug detox and rehab facility located in Southern Humboldt.

Formerly a marriage and family therapist, Bedell had her MFT license revoked in 2018 when the state’s Board of Behavioral Sciences found that she had failed to report a criminal conviction stemming from an incident in September of 2016. Read the revocation order here.

According to that order, Bedell was arrested and later convicted for driving 88 miles per hour with a blood alcohol level of 0.29 percent, more than three and a half times the legal limit.

Bedell has had several more run-ins with the law since then. In a somewhat convoluted incident from June 2018, deputies responded to a pair of stolen vehicle reports connected to a McKinleyville residence and to Bedell, who was already under investigation for child endangerment, according to a press release from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office. While searching the residence, deputies allegedly found a loaded firearm, heroin, syringes, marijuana and drug paraphernalia, all in an area accessible to children.

At the time, Bedell was director of another public benefit nonprofit called Evolve Youth Services. She has not been affiliated with that organization for four or five years now, according to its current treasurer, Paul Rodrigues.

In January of 2020, Bedell was arrested again for driving under the influence of alcohol resulting in injury.

Reached by phone this afternoon, Bedell was hesitant to discuss the matter, saying she would release a statement after speaking with her attorney and East Coast PR team.

“You understand the implications and what this looks like, the seriousness of what this looks like on paper … ,” she said, adding that false things have been printed about her in the past.  “I want to work with you, and I want you to work with me, too. I don’t want that facility to be in any danger. I don’t want people who need help to not benefit from the quality and amazing program we have. I know you don’t want that either.”

She added, “As you know, an arrest does not mean a conviction.”

When told that we planned to publish a story today, Bedell requested an hour to feed her kids and make some phone calls. Reached again an hour later, she said she couldn’t comment on the July Fourth incident except to say that it will have no effect on the operation of Singing Trees.

“It’s open and we have a resident moving in,” she said.

She went on to deny that the state had revoked her marriage and family therapy license, saying she relinquished it voluntarily because she no longer needed it, “but I didn’t follow the proper channels.”

We asked her to explain further.

“When you have a license for anything … and you want to not have it anymore, you have to do a process,” she said. “You can’t just not do it. So I paid my fee to renew my license and then I made the decision upon consultation [with a colleague] not to go through the process of continuing with that. And I didn’t turn in the correct paperwork for that because I wasn’t aware [I needed to].”

Asked if she had any proof that she’d voluntarily relinquished her license, anything she could send to us, she replied, “What would that even look like?”

We asked her why the California Board of Behavioral Sciences maintains a published ruling saying her license was, in fact, revoked, and Bedell again insisted that she had already relinquished her license by that time. 

“It’s really what happened!” she said. “I thought, ‘Okay, I don’t need this license anymore and I don’t want it because this isn’t what I do anymore.’ I don’t do traditional therapy, I don’t bill insurance. I had moved on from that. I knew that there was gonna be a lot of hoops to jump through, but that [state ruling] hadn’t happened yet when I made that choice.”

Asked about the underlying criminal charges — driving 88 with a 0.29 percent blood alcohol content — Bedell acknowledged that it happened but again said she had already voluntarily relinquished her license by that point.

We then asked her about the 2018 arrest for child endangerment. “I’m not sure if I’m ready to talk about all of that,” Bedell said, adding that “incorrect information” about the incident had been printed at kymkemp.com. However, it seems she was referring to publication of a press release issued by the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office and published by Kemp as well as the Outpost and the Times-Standard.

What was incorrect in that press release? Bedell said the charges mentioned were later dropped and that she, personally, had not reported the cars stolen, though the press release doesn’t say she had.

Asked if there was anything else she wanted to say, Bedell took some time to think through and recite a statement. Speaking slowly and deliberately she said, “We are very excited to have Singing Trees open and to provide quality substance abuse treatment services to our community from a holistic approach.”

She then wrestled with what to say about her latest arrest, at one point requesting this reporter’s help. Finally, she ventured forth on her own: “The event on July Fourth of 2023 is still under investigation. There are not official charges from the District Attorney — .”

She cut herself off there, mid-sentence: “No no no. I can’t talk about this.”

Before the conversation ended, Bedell returned to the matter of Singing Trees.

“We are still open,” she said. “We have residents moving in now and we are accepting new patients and there is no impact on the operations of the facility in any manner whatsoever.”