Middletown-based in-home addiction treatment provider Aware Recovery Care has been ordered to surrender the Wallingford office that long served as its headquarters after failing to pay rent, court records show.
Aware Recovery is also awaiting a federal judge’s decision on a proposed $850,000 settlement in a wage lawsuit covering nearly 300 current and former employees.
The civil cases come amid a turbulent stretch for the company, which has also spent recent weeks distancing itself from a co-founder facing serious criminal charges.
Matthew Eacott, a former executive who rose from one of Aware’s first clients to chief operating officer, was recently charged with first-degree manslaughter and tampering with evidence in connection with a fatal 2022 drug overdose at his Burlington home.
He also faces separate felony drug trafficking charges in New Britain Superior Court.
Aware said Eacott has no current management, decision-making or advisory role at the company.
Founded in 2011, Aware built a national profile around its in-home addiction treatment model and expanded into 11 states. The company is led by CEO Roy Sasenaraine, who was appointed in May 2025.
Aware Recovery Care declined to comment on the civil suits, but previously said it was unaware of the criminal cases against Eacott.
In the eviction case, landlord 35 Thorpe Avenue Associates LLC sued Aware on July 17 in the New Haven Housing Session of state Superior Court, alleging the company stopped paying rent on its corporate offices at 35 Thorpe Ave. in Wallingford as of June 1. According to the complaint, Aware leased roughly 12,000 square feet of first-floor space at a monthly rent of $23,911.
A state marshal served notices to quit in late June demanding the company vacate by July 7. Aware never appeared in the case, and on July 31, Superior Court Judge Alayna Stone entered a default judgment awarding the landlord possession of the property for nonpayment.
The office had been Aware’s listed corporate headquarters for years, appearing on the company’s website, accreditation records and business filings. The company’s website now lists its corporate office at 386 Main St., Suite 422, in Middletown.
In the federal case, former certified recovery advisor Dorothea Cornick sued Aware in March 2024 in U.S. District Court in Connecticut, alleging the company misclassified recovery advisors, care coordinators and family educators as exempt from overtime and, after reclassifying them as hourly workers, failed to pay for all hours worked. Aware denies the allegations, and the proposed settlement is not an admission of wrongdoing.
The $850,000 deal would cover 290 workers across multiple states, including 254 who worked in Massachusetts. After attorneys’ fees of $283,333, litigation costs and other deductions, workers who file claims would share a net fund of roughly $505,000.
The settlement has not yet been approved. U.S. District Judge Sarah Russell declined to grant preliminary approval in January. The parties filed a renewed motion in March that remains pending.
Eacott is scheduled to enter a plea Tuesday in Torrington Superior Court on the manslaughter and tampering charges.
