tribtoday.com on April 27, 2011 reported that a 65-year-old Newton Falls pharmacist was placed on probation for five years Monday after pleading guilty earlier to drug charges and agreeing to testify against his boss, who was convicted later. Robert J. Gaves of Orchard Street, Newton Falls, also was ordered by Judge Andrew Logan to perform 100 hours of community service and he saw his driver’s license suspended for six months. Any action on his credentials to practice pharmacy are still pending with the Ohio Board of Pharmacy, which investigated the case involving him, a fellow pharmacist and their boss, Kenneth Overholt of Overholt’s Pharmacy in Champion where they all worked. Gaves told the judge that he was sorry for what had happened.

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thanhniennews.com on April 27, 2011 reported that a Ho Chi Minh City court on Wednesday morning sentenced a doctor of a major hospital to 15 years in jail for faking prescriptions worth billions of dong. Luu To Lan, 43, of the Cho Ray Hospital was tried along with 11 doctors, pharmacists and officers of other hospitals. The accomplices received jail term ranging from 18 months’ probation to six years. Prosecutors of the HCMC prosecution agency previously proposed a 20-year sentence to Lan, the mastermind behind the fraud. According to the indictment, two years ago Lan had connived with the 11 defendants to collect a number of health insurance cards from workers in HCMC and neighboring provinces.

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nola.com on April 27, 2011 reported that Federal agents have arrested two elderly doctors and six other people suspected in an alleged fraud ring that targeted Medicare and Medicaid to the tune of more than $12 million in phony reimbursement claims, the FBI announced Tuesday. Dr. Jerry Haskin, 78, and Dr. Jack Voight, 79, were among those arrested on suspicion of filing the phony claims through three New Orleans-area clinics: Health Plus, Saturn Health Care and New Millenium Health Care. Clinic associates paid kickbacks to “marketers” and “recruiters” to find and transport patients, allowing them to bill for phantom or unnecessary procedures, according to a criminal complaint unsealed this week. Some patients got prescription pain drugs for undergoing a battery of unnecessary tests, then passed on some of the drugs to the marketers.

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miamiherald.com on April 27, 2011 reported that a federal judge on Wednesday rejected a plea agreement calling for a former Indiana surgeon captured in Italy after five years on the run to spend four years in prison, saying he wasn’t confident the deal took into account the magnitude of the man’s crimes. Mark Weinberger once operated a Merrillville nose and sinus clinic, where prosecutors say he billed insurers and patients for procedures he didn’t perform. U.S. District Judge Philip Simon asked why the U.S. attorney’s office had limited its investigation to 22 cases, saying he received a letter from an insurance company indicating there were at least 53 more victims. He also questioned whether the $318,000 in restitution the deal called for was sufficient, saying that during the 20-month span covered by the investigation Weinberger earned $27 million and netted $7 million after expenses.

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calcoastnews.com on April 27, 2011 reported that the parents of a Cal Poly student who died after he was hit by a truck while walking on U.S. Highway 101 in San Luis Obispo filed a wrongful death lawsuit against three government agencies and a local doctor. On April 4, 2010 at about 1 a.m., Matthew Hurlbutt, 21, with cocaine, alcohol and marijuana in his system was walking along the freeway near the Santa Rosa intersection when a Toyota Tacoma driven by Ronald Reinhardt, of Pismo Beach, struck him. Reinhardt said he did not see the student prior to the collision. Michelle and Lee Hurlbutt of Upland filed their wrongful death lawsuit on March 29 against Caltrans, the county of San Luis Obispo, city of San Luis Obispo and local doctor Atsuko Rees. The lawsuit claims the agencies were negligent in maintaining the area of the highway where Hurlbutt was struck and killed.

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irishtimes.com on April 28, 2011 reported that the Jury in the trial of a former Co Clare doctor accused of defrauding the families of two cancer patients is to hear a further summing up of the case today. Paschal Carmody (63), of Ballcuggeran, Killaloe, denies defrauding the families of two terminally ill cancer patients of a total of €16,554 at the East Clinic in Killaloe in 2001-2002 by claiming he could cure their cancer using photodynamic therapy treatment which he had administered to both. Seven of the nine charges relate to the late Co Wexford teenager Conor O’Sullivan (15), who died from an aggressive form of bone cancer in November 2002. The remaining charges concern John Sheridan (58) of Kells, Co Kilkenny, who died from liver cancer in November 2002.

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hebdenbridgetimes.co.uk on April 28, 2011 reported that a Sheffield-based doctor accused of misconduct in discharging from his care a teenage girl who later allegedly tried to kill herself has accused her father of putting his own feelings before his daughter. The General Medical Council says the 14-year-old attempted suicide just days after Dr Tony Livesey removed her from a specialist mental health unit at short notice. The consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist is said to have undermined her mental stability as he discharged her from Oakwood Young People’s Centre in Sheffield. At various meetings during her time at Oakwood in May and June 2009, the girl’s father said Dr Livesey was “flippant”, “unprofessional” and “rude”, with one conversation ending with him squaring up to him as he leant into his face.

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bloomfield.patch.com on April 25, 2011 reported that a Bloomfield doctor accused of groping his 27-year-old female patient has been convicted on four counts of criminal sexual contact, according to the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office. Raymond Russomanno, 67, of Randolph, faces up to 18 months in prison when sentenced June 6 in Superior Court in Newark. He was acquitted on two counts of attempted sexual assault and seven other counts of criminal sexual contact. The doctor was accused of engaging in criminal sexual acts over the course of five visits in 2007. Essex County Prosecutors Office had arranged for the patient, who was seeing the doctor for back pain, to videotape the last two visits. “We are gratified with the guilty verdict on the four counts because it means he will never be able to practice medicine again,” said Acting First Assistant Prosecutor Robert D. Laurino, who tried the case.

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dailyjournal.net on April 27, 2011 reported that a Connecticut doctor was known to drug addicts as “the candy man” because he so readily wrote out prescriptions for controlled painkillers, according to court documents. Dr. Scott Houghton was arraigned Tuesday in Middlesex Superior Court in Middletown on 47 felony charges. Houghton remains free on $250,000 bond posted after his April 12 arrest. His case was transferred to a higher-level court and continued to May 24. Houghton lives in Madison and practices in Old Saybrook. The warrant for his arrest says Houghton accepted cash, free concert tickets and even hotel stays at casinos in exchange for drugs, often without examinations.

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nwcn.com on April 26, 2011 reported that the transgender woman accused of pretending to be a doctor and giving women fake breast exams will serve 360 days in jail. Kristina B. Ross, 37, was originally charged with two felony counts of practicing medicine without a license but as part of a plea deal with Ada County prosecutors, pleaded guilty in March to the lesser charges of battery. Prosecutors say last fall, Ross pretended to be a plastic surgeon and performed breast exams on a number of women at local bars and nightclubs.

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monstersandcritics.com on April 27, 2011 reported that a Taiwan doctor has been indicted for a botched circumcision which allegedly caused infection and left the patient with a shorter penis, a newspaper reported Wednesday. Chen Chun-nan, owner of the Chen Urology Clinic in Taichung, central Taiwan, was indicted by the Taichung Prosecutor’s Office on charges of medical negligence causing injury to the patient, identified only by his last name Tseng, the Apple Daily said. Tseng, 34, is seeking 2 million Taiwan dollars (66,000 US dollars) in damages from Chen, who allegedly treated Tseng for an inflammation by performing a circumcision that failed to heal. Tseng later spent 20 days in hospital, where he underwent four surgeries to clean up the infection and received a skin graft.

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dailyjournal.net on April 26, 2011 reported that a pain management doctor in New Bern has pleaded guilty to money laundering and fraud in federal court. The Sun Journal of New Bern reported that Dr. Michael K. Nunn entered the plea Monday before U.S. District Judge Terrence W. Boyle. The judge fined Nunn’s Community Wellness Center in New Bern $700,000 and ordered Nunn to pay nearly $300,000 in restitution. The pain management business also had operations in Winterville and Morehead City. Nunn also has been placed on probation for four years.

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gjsentinel.com on April 26, 2011 reported that a homeopathic doctor has been arrested in Eagle County for allegedly having inappropriate physical contact with a child during a treatment at a wellness center. The Eagle County Sheriff’s Office said today it arrested Alfred Bamberger, 73, of Edwards on suspicion of sexual assault on a child by someone in a position of trust. The sheriff’s office said the incident happened at Finis Boni in Edwards. An arrest warrant was issued and Bamberger turned himself in and appeared in court today.

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chronicle.northcoastnow.com on April 26, 2011 reported that prosecutors have dropped charges of sexual imposition against a former Wellington doctor who had been accused of having inappropriate sexual contact with his patients. An unrelated charge of procuring that accuses 69-year-old Jang Kongthong of paying another patient to engage in sexual activity with him remains pending, said Frank Janik, the prosecutor handing the case in Oberlin Municipal Court. Janik said the sexual imposition charges were dropped because the law requires more than just the alleged victim’s words in order to win a conviction. “There just wasn’t enough evidence,” Janik said. The procuring case is scheduled for trial before Oberlin Municipal Court Judge Thomas Januzzi next week, according to court records.

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dailymail.co.uk on April 27, 2011 reported that a doctor promoted his surgery cleaner to practice manager and bought her ‘a lot of vodka’ during their seven-year-affair which only ended when she drowned in the bath after drinking. Dawn Best, 42, was found dead by Dr Ian Hunter one morning, at a property in which he allowed her to live rent-free, having drunk half a bottle of spirits with him the previous night. Red marks were found around the mother-of-three’s neck. Police also found an illegally held shotgun in the GP’s possession. And Dr Hunter, who said he had also paid for her Sky TV and ‘a whole lot of vodka’, was arrested on suspicion of her murder.

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massdevice.com on April 26, 2011 reported that the Maryland doctor who allegedly implanted hundreds of cardiac patients with unnecessary stents has claimed he is innocent in an editorial published in the Baltimore Sun. Dr. Mark Midei, a cardiologist at St. Joseph Medical Center in Towson, Md., wrote that his “decisions as a doctor have been motivated by one thing only: The well-being of my patients.” The hospital and Midei were slapped with a class-action lawsuit two weeks after the hospital notified patients about the possibly unneeded procedures in January 2010. A Towson attorney later filed 101 complaints against the two alleging conspiracy, negligence and fraud. In November 2010, St. Joseph agreed to pay $22 million to the federal government to settle a whistleblower lawsuit over the implantations, without admitting any guilt.

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The Times of India on April 27, 2011 reported that a doctor was caught red-handed in Bhilwara for allegedly accepting a bribe of Rs 500 to release a cheque of Rs 1400 which was to be given to a woman under Janani Suraksha Yojana scheme of the state government. The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) on Tuesday arrested him and booked him under various sections of Prevention of Corruption Act. According to IG, ACB, Umesh Mishra, the accused doctor, Rajendra Singh Kothari, was deputed at community health centre at Mandalgarh in Bhilwara district. The complainant, Mohammad Yunus, had approached the agency after the doctor demanded a bribe of Rs 500. “Yunus’s wife Rehana Begum had been admitted to the community health centre on April 22 for delivery,” said Mishra.

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