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| “ | 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 berating his patients and their "selfishness". |
Robert Smith is the secondary antagonist of the Criminal Minds episode "Broken Wing". Smith is a con artist who poses as a drug rehabilitation counselor and embezzles from the residents and patients of his fraudulent rehab programs, and who is briefly a suspect in murders committed by serial killer Douglas Knight.
He was portrayed by Scott William Winters, who also portrayed Cyril O'Reily in Oz.
Early life[]
Smith acquired a business doctorate from a non-accredited college tuition, but had a lengthy criminal record consisting mostly of drug and assault charges. He served time for manslaughter for beating a man to death for telling him he was a "failure". Smith eventually resorted to embezzlement scams, opening chains of fraudulent rehab centers and programs so he could steal from the insurance companies and kick the patients out once their insurance coverage ran dry. He would also emotionally abuse his patients, calling them selfish weaklings who were beyond saving, which would drive them to relapse into their addictions and be readmitted to the program so he could steal from them all over again.
One of Smith's employees, nurse Douglas Knight, had lost his girlfriend Daphne to a drug overdose, and he was indoctrinated by Smith's lies about his patients being lost causes; as a result, he started killing them after they were removed from the program to "put them out of their misery".
"Broken Wing"[]
Smith is uncooperative with the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU), who are investigating the murders, when they question him at his Sweetwater Springs Rehab Center. They also take note of him insulting the victims, berating patients for cooperating with them, and throwing them out of the program at the drop of a hat. They briefly suspect him of committing the murders and detain him for questioning.
During his interrogation, Smith admits that his program is a fraud, but he denies killing his patients, callously reasoning that he could not steal their insurance if they were dead. The BAU team believes him and lets him go, but they alert the local police to his embezzlement.
After the BAU deduces that Knight is the real killer and arrest him, Smith is investigated and incarcerated for robbery and reckless endangerment.
Trivia[]
- Smith is primarily inspired by Hu Wanlin, a Chinese quack doctor and serial killer with a similar criminal record who sold bogus medical remedies that killed over 100 people before his incarceration, which resulted in massive changes to Chinese medical and licensure laws.
- Smith's chain of rehab centers is inspired by the cracks in mental healthcare and addiction recovery resulting in embezzlement and dangerous, unchecked and enabled public and private facilities and programs. The particular programs Smith runs also evokes the fictional corrupt hospital in the 2018 psychological thriller Unsane, where patients' insurance companies for as long as the patients are held hostage in the facility under false grounds. The film in turn was inspired by the insurance fraud reports against Universal Health Services.
External links[]
- Robert Smith on the Criminal Minds Wiki
