A leader of the controversial Tennessee church known for its “Weigh Down” weight loss program was sentenced Thursday to three years and five months in prison for healthcare fraud.
Helen Abelmalak Boerman, 49, admitted in court that her optometry practice in Brentwood, a wealthy suburb south of Nashville, stole nearly $7 million from the federal government.
With approximately 50 members of Remnant Fellowship church in the courtroom to support her, Boerman admitted what she did was wrong, but used stress as her excuse.
Boerman filed false claims for years, asking Medicare to reimburse her for medical supplies that she did not give to patients and appointments that never happened. She used the money to pay herself a $333,715 salary and buy a $5.2 million home in nearby Franklin, according to federal investigators.
“I offer my plea of ‘guilty’ freely and voluntarily and of my own accord,” Boerman told the U.S. District Court in Middle Tennessee in May. “I understand that should this plea of guilty be accepted, I will be a convicted felon in the eyes of the law for the rest of my life.”
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Remnant Fellowship in Brentwood, Tennessee, removed Helen Boerman from its leadership page after her guilty plea. She had been listed as a leader since 2021. (Photo courtesy of remnantfellowship.org)
Remnant Fellowship, founded by the late Gwen Shamblin and now led by Shamblin’s daughter Elizabeth Kaufmann, has quietly scrubbed Boerman from its website. Boerman was listed as part of the leadership team starting in 2021, around the same time, according to the government’s account, she began perpetrating her fraud.
Her attorney told the court that she ministered to families facing marital troubles, medical problems and financial difficulties.
Boerman’s biographical statement on the church website said she followed Shamblin’s teachings in every aspect of her life, including “career decisions, travels, finances and investments.” She credited Shamblin with showing her the biblical principles that lead to “answered prayer through righteous living.”
Shamblin, who died in a plane crash in May 2021, had called Boerman a personal friend.
The Remnant Fellowship founder was accused of being an authoritarian leader in docuseries “The Way Down,” which aired on HBO Max in 2021-22. Former members said that the church and its associated weight-loss ministry were “all about appearances,” and Shamblin insisted all the women in the church become her “clones.”
Shamblin’s son Michael told WTVF Ch. 5, Nashville’s CBS affiliate, that she was a controlling narcissist.
“Praise, power — she loved the attention, she loved the spotlight,” he said in 2024. “I believe she absolutely saw herself as a prophet.”
Spiritual weight loss program attracted thousands
Shamblin launched Weigh Down in 1986. A trained dietician, she opposed counting calories and swearing off certain foods and said people just needed to learn to listen to their bodies. She added a spiritual component to the program in the early 1990s.
Gwen Shamblin founded the Weigh Down program in 1986, teaching participants to redirect their appetite for food toward God. Her book “The Weigh Down Diet” sold 400,000 copies in a single year. (Photo courtesy of Facebook)
“If you focus your attention on God and prayer instead of the magnetic pull of the refrigerator, it’s amazing how free you’ll be,” Shamblin told The Washington Post. “I teach people to transfer over their love of food to a love of God. Once you stop obsessing on the food, you’ll be able to stop right in the middle of that candy bar.”
The program was wildly popular. More than 600 churches across the country offered Shamblin’s 12-week, $103 course in 1994. The number of participating churches grew, according to contemporary news reports, to 1,000 in 1995; 5,000 in 1996; 9,000 in 1997; and 15,000 in 1998.
Shamblin’s book, “The Weigh Down Diet,” sold 400,000 copies in one year. Her Nashville-based ministry quickly outgrew its headquarters, and she made enough money to spend $2.3 million on a pre-Civil War plantation home known as Ashland.
In 1999, Shamblin decided to start her own church.
She left her Church of Christ congregation and planted Remnant Fellowship in Brentwood with about 80 people. She said at the time that American Christianity, including the most conservative traditions, had become too lax and permissive. She did not believe women should lead churches — except when there were no men to do the job.
“How could anyone read the Bible and not see that men are meant to lead?” she told The New Yorker while snacking on candy. “I felt so sorry for God that there wasn’t a man doing it.”
Shamblin immediately stirred further controversy when she rejected orthodox Christian teaching about the Trinity. She said the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are not one in being and not equal. According to Shamblin, Scripture always teaches hierarchy, and Christians, following Christ, need to learn submission.
Thousands of churches canceled their Weigh Down classes. Shamblin told Christianity Today, however, the controversy would quickly pass.
“People don’t care about this,” she said in 2000. “They don’t care about the Trinity. … What women want is weight loss.”
Joined Remnant Church in her 20s
The break from traditional Christian teaching actually attracted some followers.
Boerman joined Shamblin’s church in 2002 at the age of 25. She and her future husband, Chris, said they found Remnant Fellowship after they “made the commitment … to leave mainstream Christianity.” They thought Shamblin’s teaching was “revolutionary” and a return to “mere Christianity.” They also liked the fact she was a strong leader.
Helen and Chris Boerman appeared on Remnant Fellowship’s leadership page until the church scrubbed it following her guilty plea. (Photo courtesy of Internet Archive)
The two married at Shamblin’s home in 2005 and began having children a few years after that. Boerman worked for Wang Vision Institute in Nashville for about a decade, spent a few more at Cool Vision Eye Care in Franklin, then took ownership of Brentwood Eye Clinic in 2015.
According to Boerman’s attorney, she turned the clinic into “a leading referral center for advanced, recalcitrant ocular surface disease and dry eye disease.”
Boerman’s patients gave her rave reviews on Google and Yelp.
“They made me feel like I was cared for from the moment I walked in, to the moment I walked out,” one reviewer wrote in 2020. “Dr. Boerman took the time to really listen to my concerns.”
At least one person, though, noticed abnormalities in the insurance billing and gave Brentwood Eye Clinic a one-star review.
Experts estimate that Medicare loses between $60 and $100 billion to fraud every year. In 2025, federal prosecutors charged 324 people across the country with schemes ranging from unnecessary procedures to kickbacks to phantom billing.
Federal investigators found “false, fictitious, and fraudulent” claims at the Brentwood clinic starting in 2020. Some of the false claims were filed with the state insurance program TennCare.
U.S. Attorney Braden Boucek said Boerman ordered staff to create false records to support the insurance claims.
COVID-19 cited as excuse
Boerman’s attorney, Oliver Benton Curtis III, told the court she was really trying to help her patients. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she started doubling up dry-eye treatments to reduce risk or exposure to the virus. Medicare would only cover one treatment per visit, so Boerman had staff falsify the paperwork.
Her attorney admitted this did lead to nearly $7 million in improper billing.
The federal prosecutor noted in court Thursday that the amount of fraud increased in 2022, even though concerns about COVID-19 had trailed off. Boerman kept stealing from Medicare until she was caught.
Boerman did not fight the charges. In March, she waived her right to have a grand jury determine whether there was probable cause to indict her. In May, she pleaded guilty.
“She readily acknowledges her wrongdoing and feels immense regret for the impact her actions have had on Medicare and her patients’ trust in her,” Curtis told the court. “Dr. Boerman similarly regrets the impact her actions have had on her family and local community.”
Helen Boerman appears with Gwen Shamblin Lara on a Weigh Down program, “How to Have Healthy Babies.” (Video screengrab)
Boerman asked the judge to consider her lack of criminal record, her need to care for her children and the major role faith plays in her life. She suggested a 12-month sentence, instead of the maximum possible five-year sentence.
Judge William “Chip” Campbell Jr. gave her 42 months. He said fraud undermines the Medicare system, which depends on honest billing, and Boerman was not just “cutting corners.” She will also be required to pay back $6.9 million.
The court did show some leniency, however. Boerman was told to report to authorities after the Christmas holidays. She will begin her prison sentence on Jan. 4.
Daniel Silliman is senior reporter/editor at The Roys Report. He began his two decades in journalism covering crime in Atlanta and has since led major investigations into abuse and misconduct in Christian contexts. Daniel and his wife live in Johnson City, Tennessee