Little Creek Lodge was sold to a Delaware LLC in 2020. The county expanded the contract anyway. Matthew Meagher’s name is in the corporate filings.
Previous reporting:
- Part 1: Wayne County Has Four Licensed Addiction Providers. It Pays Two.
- Part 2: PATH Operated at a Loss for Three Straight Years While a Board Member Collected $122,000 as Its Highest-Paid Contractor
- Part 3: Wayne County Had Two Addiction Providers. Then the Checks Changed.
Little Creek Lodge’s website describes the facility as “a small family owned and operated drug and alcohol treatment center.”
That was true until December 2020.
Pennsylvania Secretary of State filings show Little Creek Lodge LLC is now governed by Richard J. Sabella, whose principal address is 631 US Highway 1, Suite 304, North Palm Beach, Florida. The entity that acquired the facility — Allerand FS Investco LLC, a Delaware limited liability company — registered in Pennsylvania on December 29, 2020. Its registered agent is Cogency Global Inc.
The original owners were Barbara Warren Pace and Andrew Pace, a couple who lived at The Hideout, a gated community near Lake Ariel. They formed Silverbird LLC in January 2007 and Little Creek Lodge LLC in June of the same year. They built the facility on Easton Turnpike in Salem Township and ran it for 13 years. Former clients remember them by first name. “I can not possibly express the full magnitude of my appreciation to Barb, Andy and all the Little Creek staff,” one review reads.
Swope Lees Behavioral Health Group, an M&A advisory firm, brokered the sale. Its deal page describes the sellers as “looking to transition into retirement” and the buyer as an entity that “sought to expand their operations to the mid-Atlantic region.”
The Paces don’t run Little Creek anymore. The Sabellas do. But Silverbird LLC — the entity they formed five months before Little Creek Lodge LLC — is still active. The Paces are still listed as its governors in a filing updated April 28, 2026. Wayne County recorder of deeds records show that on January 6, 2021, Allerand FS Investco took a mortgage from Silverbird, secured by property in Salem Township. The Paces financed the sale. The mortgage was satisfied in December 2022.
The Honorable Matthew Meagher
On October 3, 2008, both Silverbird LLC and Little Creek Lodge LLC filed a Change of Registered Office with the Pennsylvania Secretary of State. Both filings show the same name: “Meagher, Matthew.”
Matthew L. Meagher was a practicing attorney in Honesdale with an emphasis in real estate. His law office was at 1018 Church Street.
Meagher’s law firm was Meagher Ellis Law Inc. His partner was Brendan Ellis, who became an Assistant District Attorney in Wayne County. Pocono Review has previously reported that Ellis has been prosecuting cases before Meagher — his former law partner and business co-owner — since Meagher took the bench, without disclosure to defendants. Ellis works in the same DA’s office that, per the county’s own website, “will make an initial determination at Central Court (Waiver Court) regarding your eligibility to apply” for the Drug and Treatment Court.
In January 2021, Meagher announced his candidacy for the newly created second judgeship on the Wayne County Court of Common Pleas. He was elected and sworn in on December 29, 2021 by President Judge Janine Edwards.
Four days later — on January 3, 2022 — a Certificate of Amendment was filed for Little Creek Lodge LLC. The filing changed the LLC’s registered office from Meagher’s law firm to the facility’s address at 359 Easton Turnpike, Lake Ariel.
Meagher served as the registered office for both Little Creek entities for approximately 13 years. The Allerand acquisition closed in December 2020 — the same month Meagher’s principal address in the corporate record was still listed as his Church Street law office. His candidacy announcement came the following month.
Meagher now sits on the Court of Common Pleas in the 22nd Judicial District. The Drug and Treatment Court operates within that district, referring participants to the commission for placement with contracted providers — including Little Creek.
The Meagher family’s financial relationship with the county extends beyond the corporate filings. Commissioner minutes going back to at least 2019 show monthly payments of $2,000 to Maurice F. Meagher Jr. for “TRANS 509 CHURCH ST GARAGE” — rent for a building on Church Street in Honesdale used by county Transportation. The payments appear in the August 2025, February 2026, and October 2024 minutes, among others. A second Meagher entity, Meagher Professional Building Inc., receives a separate $100 monthly payment for transportation parking spaces.
Maurice F. Meagher Jr., according to the Meagher Insurance Agency website, is a retired Navy Captain who served as President of Honesdale Borough Council and sat on the Wayne County Housing Board for 25 years and the Wayne County Redevelopment Authority for 20 years.
Paul M. Meagher, Maurice’s brother, sits on the board of directors of The Honesdale National Bank. So does Roger Dirlam, whose lumber company sold the county the building supplies tagged to “Little Creek Waller.” The bank’s name appears in the Wayne County recorder of deeds records on a Letter of Attorney issued to Silverbird LLC on January 20, 2021 — two weeks after Silverbird provided the mortgage that financed Allerand’s acquisition of Little Creek.
Who Owns It Now
Florida Division of Corporations filings map the new ownership structure.
Allerand Family Holdingco LLC was formed in Florida in April 2025. Its manager is Allen Sabella. Its authorized members are Richard J. Sabella and Randal Sabella. Its address is 1000 Brickell Plaza, Miami.
Allen Sabella also appears as an authorized person on First States Investors 5300 LLC, a Delaware entity registered in Florida. The other authorized person on that filing is Peter Paganelli. The mailing address on the filing reads: “675 W Indiantown Rd, Ste 103 / 40 Allerand Capital, LLC / Jupiter, FL.”
Paganelli’s LinkedIn profile identifies him as Principal of Allerand Capital LLC. His background includes positions at Cerberus Capital Management, Starwood Capital Group, and Cushman & Wakefield. The profile describes over 30 years managing billion-dollar real estate portfolios with a specialty in distressed assets. He holds an MBA in Finance and Real Estate from Columbia Business School.
Richard J. Sabella — the governor listed on Little Creek Lodge LLC in Pennsylvania — appears on ZoomInfo as a Principal at Allerand Capital and a former real estate partner at Cahill Gordon & Reindel, a New York City law firm.
Allerand-branded entities also control the affiliated companies. Shane’s House LLC — the recovery residence that receives Wayne County Drug and Alcohol Commission payments for housing clients — is filed in Pennsylvania under Allerand Recovery Holdings. The Wayne County D&A Commission’s own 2018-19 annual report describes Shane’s House as “a male recovery house owned by Little Creek Lodge.”
One ownership group now operates residential treatment, outpatient counseling, recovery housing, and — as of October 2025 — jail-based addiction services in Wayne County, all under contract with the county’s publicly funded Drug and Alcohol Commission.
What the County Didn’t Say
No Wayne County commissioner meeting minutes, HSA Governing Board agenda, or Drug and Alcohol Advisory Council agenda reviewed by Pocono Review contains any reference to the December 2020 change in ownership of Little Creek Lodge.
The commissioners approved every expansion of Little Creek’s contract after the sale. In October 2025, the HSA Governing Board amended Little Creek’s contract to include jail-based counseling services. In April 2026, commissioner minutes show county purchases of lumber and paint from Dirlam Bros. Lumber and Sherwin-Williams, both tagged to “Little Creek Waller” — supplies for what appears to be a building renovation associated with the company in Honesdale. Roger Dirlam, the owner of Dirlam Bros., is the Vice Chairman of The Honesdale National Bank’s board of directors.
The Wayne County Drug and Alcohol Commission’s website still lists Little Creek Outpatient Services as one of its two contracted outpatient providers. Director Jeff Zerechak highlighted the Little Creek partnership as a “major accomplishment” in his 2018-19 annual report to the commissioners. That partnership was built with the Paces. The contract expansions happened under the Sabellas.
Former commissioner Joseph Adams said at a May 2020 meeting, when approving a Little Creek contract amendment, that the funds are “not County funds, they are state funds.” The money comes from Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs block grants. The D&A Commission’s 2024-25 annual certification statement reports total expenditures of $1,370,473. The SCA decides how to distribute those funds among providers.
Pennsylvania’s Code of Judicial Conduct requires judges to disqualify themselves from proceedings in which their impartiality might reasonably be questioned. Whether a judge who represented a treatment provider’s corporate entities for 13 years, whose former law partner prosecutes cases before him, and whose family collects county rent should be presiding over a court that sends defendants to that same provider is a question no one in Wayne County has publicly asked.
Corporate filings cited in this article are public records drawn from the Pennsylvania Secretary of State Bureau of Corporations and Charitable Organizations, the Florida Division of Corporations (sunbiz.org), and the Delaware Court of Chancery. The Swope Lees transaction record is publicly posted at behavioralhealthproperties.com. Commissioner meeting minutes and HSA Governing Board agendas are public documents posted on the Wayne County website.
This is the fourth in a series of Pocono Review reports on Wayne County’s publicly funded addiction treatment system. Previous reports: “Wayne County Has Four Licensed Addiction Providers. It Pays Two”, “PATH Operated at a Loss for Three Straight Years While a Board Member Collected $122,000 as Its Highest-Paid Contractor”, and “Wayne County Had Two Addiction Providers. Then the Checks Changed.”
Read Part 5: “Little Creek Foundation Spent $96,000 on a Building Its Founders Personally Owned”
Pocono Review is an independent investigative news outlet covering Monroe, Wayne, Pike, Carbon, Lackawanna, and Luzerne counties. We report on the government, never for it.
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